Jaune Arc: Hero of Vytal
by Kartofel von Kouch
Summary: Being from a family of heroes, Jaune had long ago realized that heroism wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was just plain sense to take a safer course in life. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to tell him that the world just didn't make sense. Inspired by the Ciaphas Cain series of Warhammer 40K. (pairings undecided)
1. Prologue

**Author' note:** This both my my first fanfic for FFN and my first fanfic for Monty Oum's _RWBY_. This is inspired by the Ciaphas Cain series from the _Warhammer 40,000_ franchise. For those unfamiliar with the series, the basic premise is that the books are actually the secretly published memoirs of the titular character, who is considered a big hero despite being a self-admitted coward. He somehow ends up in situtations that only enhance his apparent heroism despite his best efforts to stay out of trouble. The books are edited by (in-universe) an Inquisitor and hinted love interest Amberley Vail, who sprinkles snark and informative commentary in the form of footnotes and excerpts from in-universe publications.

That said, I'm going for a different track here, although the basic "fraudulent hero" premise will be similar. The Ciaphas Cain series is written in a first person point of view, but I feel that that's too limiting for this story since I also want to focus on the other characters as well, so this story will be written with switching third-person POVs. There also won't be any Amberley Vail-style footnotes since this story is, consequently, not in a memoir-like form. Lastly, I won't try to shoehorn _RWBY_ characters into exact counterparts of Ciaphas Cain characters since the dynamic is too different.

The characters in the FFN character label slots will hint at which charcters will have a bit more focus and/or plot-important roles. They don't necessarily imply pairings since I'm undecided at the moment and I don't really have any favorite _RWBY_ pairings, except maybe Ozpin/Glynda. And I'm not even that invested in said pairing.

* * *

**Prologue**

_"To thy own self be always in one piece." —Jaune Arc_

* * *

He could remember a little blond boy who dreamed about being a hero, like many his age. From the glory of a soldier leading armies to victory in the battlefield, to the heroic self-satisfaction of a knight rescuing the resident damsel in distress, to the more down-to-earth but still appealing idea of being a Huntsman cutting a swath through hordes of vicious Grimm terrorizing a village.

The simple, unremarkable dreams of a simple, unremarkable boy.

However, unlike many his age, said unremarkable boy had been born into a family where having a remarkable hero or two every generation or so was treated as a matter of course. So his childhood dreams had been stoked by the grand and sometimes (well, often) embellished tales of derring-do about his ancestors, starting with his dad and working all the way back to first member of the Arc family that history bothered to remember. Exciting, stirring stuff for an extremely excitable, often stir-crazy little boy they'd hoped would grow up to do something they could add to the family's collective bragging rights.

He'd wanted that too; wanted to make them proud.

The seventeen-year-old Jaune Arc smiled wistfully at the memories of simpler times, absently running a hand over his scraggly blond hair. His smile faded as the massive, whale-like airship in the distance loomed ever closer.

What a stupid little kid he'd been.

To his credit, it hadn't taken long for that stupid little kid to wise up. After all, one of the best ways that children learned was through stories, and with the tales his family eagerly poured into his tiny towhead, it hadn't taken him long to notice that many of his ancestors had a tendency to all too ... permanently enter the history books far earlier than many of their contemporaries.

He'd also noted that impressive words like _brave_, _valiant_, and _long-remembered_ were all too often accompanied by _lost_, _martyred_, and _dismembered_. A particular memory that still stood out to this day was of the one about an interesting female ancestor that had taught him the equally interesting word _immolated_.

He'd even learned to use it in a sentence: "B-but, I don't wanna be imma-maladed."

Having learned so much, the boy had decided to learn even more, expand his horizons. Soon enough the simpler childhood dreams had given way to the loftier ambitions of prepubesence—being a baker.

Fascinating stuff, baking. You made all sorts of beautiful, tasty things from variations of water, milk, and what was essentially the powdered essence of plant life; wrought into form by one's own bare hands and transcending the humble origins of the raw materials in an infernal maw of captured flame. Then you ripped it out of the jaws of hell yourself, maybe prettied it up a bit, and used it to nurture life. It was the very power of God himself in a deceptively humble form.

And as far as he could tell, rarely did you ever hear of people dismembered or immolated for being bakers. Well, provided they didn't do it to themselves by being careless around the utensils and ovens.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been smart enough to figure out that a family that prided itself for belting out heroes wouldn't be as keen about producing a lowly baker. It was unfair, really. Men like bakers had been producing food for the masses since the dawn of civilization, accounting for the lives of peasants, warriors, and nobles alike. Heroic enough by his reckoning.

His family hadn't seen it that way. He also hadn't known back then that the louder he was about not wanting to be a hero, the more determined they became about changing his mind.

Jaune shot a look the sword hanging at his side, safely in its currently scabbard-shaped shield. Crocea Mors, his legendary great-great-grandfather's equally legendary weapons—they had a name and everything! His family's brilliant attempt at being subtle. Because sticking him with an antique that forced him into maiming range because nobody wanted to "desecrate" a "classic" heirloom by sensibly sticking a gun in it somewhere was a reasonable argument for the virtues of heroism, apparently.

All the dubious honor of being bestowed the heirloom had instilled in him was a massive callus on his left thigh from the combined weight of the sword and dense shield-scabbard repeatedly brushing against it.

At the onset of puberty he'd come to realize that the perfectly sane position of keeping himself safe from harm by **not** going into harm's way to give others the same privilege you just denied yourself was an easy way to get labeled a coward, even by—_especially_ by—people not willing to go into risk their own skins but expected you to do it for their sake all the same. He'd been given a hard time for it by neighbors and schoolmates and called all sorts of names. A particularly common one was the old-fashioned "yellow" (or "yeller," as they inevitably mispronunced it), mostly because they thought themselves so clever for punning his name.

His family had made no attempt to discourage it. Indeed, they had been the most vociferous in egging it on in the hope that the near-constant mockery would make him "wise up." It had made all the torturous training they'd put him through to toughen him up even more miserable.

And it had wised him up—just not in the way they'd hoped.

He realized that he needed to be more subtle about it. See, while being considered a coward earned him nothing but grief and contempt, he noticed that being considered an earnest incompetent was given more slack. Indeed, they were often encouraged to try something else before they hurt themselves and others. Still disdained, true, but the sentiment was somehow tempered by the fact that they'd been willing to try.

Which didn't make any sense when one really thought about it since the results were ultimately the same, but another lesson Jaune had learned was that people loved not making—or having—a lick of sense. Making sense of that and convincing them that what he wanted was also what they wanted was the key.

First, he had to work around his established reputation for cowardice. An incompetent coward, after all, was someone people would hate even more. Luckily, the same collective insanity that made people fawn over willful self-endangerment in the name of "heroism" also made them inclined to the notion that some people can "get their shit together" and find redemption by "proving" themselves.

Of course, wallowing in lack of good sense also made people absurdly self-contradictory. So while they might say that they believed people can change and deserved second chances, they usually preferred to stick to their initial preconceptions unless the change fit into another set of said preconceptions—much less thinking to do that way.

He had to be gradual about it—a little muttering about being tired of being called a coward there, a touch more effort every training session there, and then just let people draw their own conclusions. Eventually, they'd think that they finally got through to him, that they finally convinced him to start living up to the family legacy. Alas, they'd also see that he was utter crap at it and start considering that it might be in their best interest to quietly shuffle him away to where his bumbling won't sully the Arc name, somewhere _safe_.

Simple.

Jaune winced. _I really should've known better._

An annoying issue he hadn't considered was that the people he had grown up around would be damnably good at sniffing out his bull. They'd looked at his seeming change of heart with a heaping helping of suspicious scrutiny and a whole lot of letting him prove himself—and in the Arc family, that meant being tossed at Grimm of steadily increasingly lethality to see if he was really taking it seriously now. He'd quickly found that it was damned hard to convincingly simulate utter incompetence in the face of actual danger, not if he didn't want to get an unsimulated mangling.

He'd had to draw on his training to keep himself in one piece. Fortunately, he'd also found out that he was excellent at staying alive. Unfortunately, in the course of all that what bumbling he'd managed to inject just convinced them that he was a natural whose skills just needed more refinement. Which meant increased brutal training, even more terrifyingly dangerous "practice" against Grimm, and fighting much harder to stay alive—which just reinforced their thinking. A vicious cycle in the worst, most literal sense.

In the course of their consistent failure to turn him into Grimm-fodder, they'd convinced themselves that they'd honed him into a prospective Hunstman good enough for the prestigious Beacon Academy. Naturally, they'd been happy to send a recommendation with the Arc name attached to it, and the academy had been happy to accept. Supposedly, Beacon only accepted the best. Well, so much for prestige.

One thing Jaune was all too certain of, however, was that Beacon was very likely going to be far worse for him in the "not being maimed or killed" department. He sighed glumly, wondering if his plan to be dismissed as a hopelessly useless goof could still be salvaged or if he needed to consider taking a different approach. He grimaced at the thought of having all those years of effort going to waste.

Of course, effort going to waste was still vastly more preferrable to his own life being wasted. He'll just have to keep doing what he did best—saving his own skin. Besides, at least his family wouldn't be personally overseeing his training this time around. Beacon was also an academy, so there'd be more options when it came to flunking. Worse came to worst, he'd be in a team, so that would hopefully distribute the chances of injury between three other people. You know, optimism.

_Shit._

His grimace deepened. Yeah, just like his original plan was supposed to have been simple. He had the sinking feeling that Beacon was going to be anything but.

Jaune looked up apprehensively, eyeing the airship as it swooped over them serenely before descending slowly toward the dock. The other students around him were similarly staring at it, with varied expressions. He struggled to avoid shooting the ones who actually looked enthusiastic a look of disgust. He still couldn't comprehend how some people could actually look forward to the prospect of facing potential injury and death, much less willingly seek it out in the first place. Maybe people were just inclined to stupidity by nature.

Then again, it was his "clever" planning that had somehow gotten him here in the first place, so what did that say about him? As if in agreement, his belly rumbled, already anticipating the severe motion sickness he as sure to feel in the air.

Jaune let out a long breath of resignation as the ship finally docked and began to extend its loading ramp. To him it seemed as if the vehicle itself was sticking its tongue out at him mockingly.

The students around him began moving forward. Reluctantly, Jaune did the same, dragging his feet the whole way. Other students jostled him as they hurried past him, and he felt a spike of annoyance bubble up from his gloominess.

It seemed as if his experience in Beacon was going to be unpleasant from start to finish. He just hoped that that finish wasn't going to be a resoundingly final one.


	2. Chapter 1 - First Impressions

**Author's Note:** Now to kick this story into gear with the first chapter. And I'm pleasantly surprised that the prologue has such a positive reception from so many people. Thanks, you guys. :)

On some of the points mentioned in the comments, like I said in the prologue, while the general premise is the same, the characters won't be direct analogs of Ciaphas Cain characters. And since Jaune doesn't nearly have as much life experience to draw upon as Cain, his approach will naturally be a bit different. For one, Cain wants to preseve his reputation for heroism and professional competence while trying to manipulate people into putting him out of harm's way. Jaune from the get-go wants to be dismissed as willing to help but too inept to be safely allowed to do so in the hope that he'll be safely dismissed. His plans will also be less thought-out and refined than Cain's.

* * *

**Chapter 1 - First Impressions**

_"Enter as you should exit: with a bang, not a whimper" __—quote unattributed_

* * *

When the airship finally took off for Beacon, Jaune had to admit that it wasn't quite as bad as he'd thought it would be. The flight was actually quite smooth; the sheer bulk of the enormous aircraft didn't shake anywhere near as much in level flight as smaller vehicles since there was more mass to dampen the vibrations. It was also much, _much_ smoother than being on a boat bobbing up and down at the mercy of the waves. The flight actually seemed like it could be tolerable, if not exactly pleasant.

That should have been his first clue.

Sadly, in a serious lapse of his better judgment he listened to the part of him that had almost been—and wanted to be—convinced that maybe it was going to be that smooth the whole way.

As usual, that glimmer of optimism had cheerfully lied to him; pessimism, at least, had the good grace to settle for a knowing smirk.

The airship turned, causing it to bank. When it leveled out again, it swayed a bit in the other direction. On a ship its size, "a bit" meant it was more than enough to feel significantly. It wouldn't have been so bad if the banking and turning only happened once or twice, but for some reason the chosen flight path seemed to meander every which-way. Even that was mostly tolerable … until they hit "a bit" of turbulence.

On the abstract level, Jaune liked it when things lived down to his expectations. It was nice to be right. On the more concrete level …

He hated feeling nauseous. It made him unable to move steadily, which would get in the way of the all-important task of keeping himself alive and well in the event things went horribly wrong. Being preoccupied with the unholy rumbling in his stomach and the building disorientation also made it increasingly impossible to think straight. His thoughts dissolved into a miserable haze of way too many vibrant colors and far too loud noises, demoting him further from sitting duck to plucked, headless chicken, first class. He was only vaguely aware of settling into an extremely uncomfortable and often painful struggle to keep the contents of his stomach firmly in the right direction even as he fought to maintain his footing.

And a mighty struggle it was, probably the closest thing to a truly valiant battle he'd ever been in. If only his family could see him now. They'd be so proud.

Unfortunately, as with the vast majority of brave, heroic stands—the ones historians and storytellers tended to gloss over—this ended in ignominious defeat. He began vomit. Not in one neat, theatrical disgorgement, no, but instead in a series of bad hics and heaves, each one accompanied by bursts of foul, awful-smelling chunky wetness. Then, as abruptly as it started, the heaving stopped. He spat, trying hard not to think about the taste too much.

Breakfast, circa early morning—a good vintage.

He braced himself against the window sill as he tried mightily not to barf again. Part of him dully noted the reactions of the students that he could see reflected in the window's glass. Most seemed to be pointedly ignoring him, some were trying (or not bothering) to hide amusement at his ordeal, and a few looked vaguely sympathetic in the ultimately self-centered "poor guy, glad he's not me" sort of way.

He was vaguely aware of wobbling over to a pair of girls, a tall, long-haired blonde and a short, shorter-haired brunette. He heard one of them say "Vomit Boy" or something to that effect as he teetered by. He supposed that this was all pretty undignified, but that didn't really bother Jaune. Having been put down as a coward for years had mostly inured him to mockery.

He'd learned long ago that dignity was just pride trying to be self-important, and pride was just the way people convinced themselves that their own flaws and shortcomings weren't really that bad (or were actually good things in the first place), making them feel better about their own inadequacies by treating them as their own oh so special set of virtues. Of course, that all just made them bone-headed, grudging, and combative whenever they felt that challenged.

Whenever he had let such people goad him in the past and he fought back, they just ganged up on him, beat him up, and mocked him even further. Considering that he was being mocked for the perfectly sane idea of not getting hurt in the first place, getting into a fight to defend that decision ... well, a point or two may have been missed. Jaune later realized it was much smarter to turn their own attitudes and expectations to his advantage, however poorly they thought of him be damned.

Besides, being known as the loser who got airsick and vomited all over the place would only help reinforce the image of hapless incompetence he was trying to nurture. He could work with this.

The two girls were edging way from a pool of vomit he'd inadvertently smeared on the floor near them when an inopportune tilt of the airship had sent it flowing slowly toward them. They started shrieking their disgust and moved further, one of them yelling something about shoes.

He supposed he might've found that vindictively funny—nothing wrong with holding a bit of a grudge as long as you didn't let it make you act stupid—had he felt better. As it was, he felt like a bad hangover without the preceding fun part aside. Or so he assumed was what a hangover felt, anyway. He only really knew about hangovers from hearsay. The creative, and sometimes amusing, ways drunk people managed to hurt themselves and others had been more than enough incentive to make sure he had never gotten drunk himself, and where his safety was concerned self-control came easy.

At any rate, he spent the rest of the flight keeping whatever remained of his breakfast down. And toward the end, he'd lost that fight too.

When the airship finally settled to a stop and began unloading passengers, Jaune all but barreled out of the exit, looking for the nearest receptacle. Conveniently, it—a barrel, appropriately enough—was right outside the exit, probably placed there precisely for what he was about to use it for. He wasted no time fulfilling its quietly noble purpose in life.

A few life-affirming heaves later, and it was finally over. He would've breathed a sigh of relief, but he'd retasted breakfast enough already, and his breath was still pretty vile. He leaned on one arm against the barrel, using the other to wipe his mouth, and regarded the other students leaving the airship.

Jaune's eyes were drawn to the pair of girls he'd probably indirectly barfed on earlier. Now that he was less disorientated and thinking much more clearly, he could focus on more than vague impressions. With a quick scan, he took in their details.

The short brunette had short hair with red highlights, a long hooded red cloak, red-frilled black combat boots, and black clothing that flared out in a wide and also red-frilled skirt. Clipped onto the back of her belt was a large collapsible weapon of some sort, unsurprisingly also colored mostly red. The tall blonde girl was more muscular and wore mostly shades of tan, had long and messy hair, an orange scarf, a gold-piped vest with short puffed sleeves, and what looked like mechanized combat gauntlets worn over gloves. She also wore some sort of open asymmetrical skirt belted over her short shorts, and knee-high platform boots.

At the sight of the boots, he grimaced.

Being publically known as Vomit Boy was one thing, actually vomiting on someone else was quite another. That was the kind of thing that could build some real resentment from the barfed-upon, and the last thing he wanted was to encourage hostility among people who were likely 1) better at fighting than he was, 2) more actually _willing_ to fight than he was in the first place, and 3) armed with who knew what sort of Dust-powered killing machine.

Better safe than sorry—or in this case, safe through a "Sorry." Provided that they weren't in an unreceptive mood or just inherently had a hostile personality, a sufficiently sincere-sounding apology could build some goodwill. And it couldn't hurt to build it among the armed and potentially dangerous.

It was also useful to start making connections. They could be potential allies, maybe even teammates, after all, and the more people were well-disposed toward him, the more there'd be between him and the Grimm. Well, theoretically anyway. People were damnably unpredictable, after all.

Unbidden, he suddenly recalled something his mother had taught him as a child, _"Remember, Jaune, strangers are friends you haven't met yet."_ Despite himself, he smirked, wondering what his poor mother would think if she knew what he'd been thinking. Ah, well, it wasn't his fault. He loved his parents dearly, but he'd learned to take what they said with a grain of salt. Besides, just what kind of thing was that to teach an overly trusting child anyway? After all, strangers could also be awful people you haven't been victimized by yet.

He shook his head, dismissing his musings.

After a quick check to make sure he hadn't gotten any vomit on himself as well, he moved after them. With practiced ease, his face took on a slightly hesitant and somewhat sheepish cast. He'd found that a pretty safe expression to default to over the years.

* * *

Ruby Rose was nervous. The fifteen-year-old had been since it had really sunk in that she was not only going to Beacon Academy, one of the best Hunting academies in Vytal—in the world!—she was going a full two years earlier than she dreamed she could. And to think that it was only because she'd managed to meet one of the school's renowned Huntresses and professors (who later introduced her to the famous Professor Ozpin himself!) after a bunch of goons had tried to rob the Dust store she'd been in. Even better, she'd only been there because she'd been a bit bummed about being separated from her older sister, Yang, when her enrollment had been accepted; she had just wanted to be alone for a while to mope. If only all robberies could end so well!

But after the glow from the fact that, instead of being left alone, she was now going with Yang to the place of her dreams had faded, it had slowly dawned on her that she'd be two years younger than everyone else in her year, with most of those people being complete strangers. She had always had difficultly being around people without coming off like a goober, and it had been bad enough in Signal where the strangers were at least familiar to some extent. Yang's friends had been nice enough, but distant from the fact that, to them, she was just Yang's kid sister.

Beacon would be the first day of school all over again. Worse now because she was only here due to some unusual circumstances, and if there was one thing she'd learned it was that "unusual" usually got a lot of attention. Between the two of them, her sister was the one who had gotten the attention-handling skills. Ruby preferred handling weapons.

Yang's attempts to reassure her hadn't been all that helpful either since she'd just emphasized the attention she was going to get. And what exactly did "bee's knees" mean anyway? Did bees even have knees?

That one guy who vomited _had_ managed to make her forget about her anxiety for a bit, but only because she'd been grossed out and didn't want his puke to end up on her shoes like they had on Yang's. A part of her had almost hoped that maybe that would mean that guy would have most of the attention on him for a while, but she had immediately felt guilty and disgusted with herself at the thought. The thought that he probably heard Yang casually call him Vomit Boy while he was feeling sick made her feel worse since she knew that while her sister had meant no real malice, she'd only done it in an attempt to distract her from her nervousness.

If she bumped into him again, she'd apologize. Or try to, anyway. Being bad with people meant she was bad at approaching them in the first place.

She tried to still the butterflies in her stomach as she and her sister walked in companionable silence out the airship.

Silver eyes widened as they took in the sight before them. She felt the apprehension she'd been feeling melt away as she gazed at the truly massive academy, taking in the graceful, swooping lines that seemed designed to draw the eyes to the impressive-looking central tower bearing the beacon the school itself was named for. Everyone always said it had been designed like that to inspire hope. At night it was the light people could turn to in the dark, and in the day its beauty, amid other buildings of equal craftsmanship, was a statement that even in the harsh world of Remnant people not only survived but _thrived_.

She'd heard that sentiment since childhood, but she never really understood the feeling until right now, when she was here herself.

"Wow …" was all she could whisper.

Beside her Yang folded her arms and nodded. "The view from Vale's got nothing on this!"

Ruby opened her mouth to agree when she saw something that tore her attention from the majesty of the palatial Beacon: _weaponry_. She loved weapons, an appreciation that had been developed and nurtured in Signal, where you were expected to design and build your own weapon. Consequently, it had an excellently detailed weapons design class, which had been the one class that had always held her undivided attention. Being trained by Uncle Qrow in the use of a scythe—something that required intense concentration and mastery—had only stoked the flames further.

She hadn't really noticed the weapons earlier since she had been too distracted and antsy. But now that she could take them all in with their sheer variety …

"Ohmygosh, Sis! That kid's got a collapsible staff!" she suddenly blurted out, waving her arms excitedly. She whipped around to another person. "And she's got a fire sword!"

In her excitement, she began unwittingly moving toward the girl in question to get a closer look at her sword. She had even begun to reach out and touch it when she suddenly felt a painful tug at her neck.

"Ow! Ooww!" She staggered backward as Yang dragged her by the hood of her cloak. She turned to see the older girl's lavender eyes shooting her a look.

"Easy there, Little Sister. They're just weapons!" her sister admonished gently.

The younger girl looked at her incredulously. She gestured in front of her with both arms. "'Just weapons'? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us!"—her voice rose and quickened into almost a squeal—"Oh, they're so cool!"

"Well, why can't you swoon over your own weapon? Aren't you happy with it?" The blonde wore a lightly indulgent smile.

In one smooth motion Ruby unclipped her collapsible scythe from behind, unfolded it, and began cradling it over her shoulder like a child. And as far as Ruby was concerned, the weapon _was_ her little baby. Her beautiful, lethal little baby. She had lovingly given life to it and nurtured it, after all. She'd even given it her surname!

"Of course I'm happy with Crescent Rose! I just really like seeing new ones. It's like meeting new people, but better ..."

_Especially since weapons are much easier to understand than people, _she thought as she placed Crescent Rose back on her belt.

Once you put some thought into the design, knew where everything fit, used it right, and kept it well maintained, a weapon will work for you every time. Simple and reliable. People were frustrating to figure out and sometimes did things she couldn't anticipate, or understand even when she could. And she couldn't really break them apart to see what was wrong.

Yang responded by playfully pulling her hood over her eyes. "Ruby, come on, why don't you go try and make some friends of your own?"

"But why would I need friends if I have you?" The younger girl smiled up at her as she drew back her hood.

A slightly exasperated look came to the blonde's face, but whatever she'd been about to say was interrupted when a voice suddenly called out behind them.

"E-excuse me! Wait up!"

The duo turned and saw a blond boy running to catch up to them, panting lightly. He wore some white armor, mostly just a chest plate and pauldrons, over a back hoodie and had a sword on his belt. The patch on his faded jeans and the messiness of his hair lent him an overall scraggly appearance. He smiled hesitantly as he stopped before them. The girls stared at him for a moment before it clicked.

"Oh, hey! Aren't you Vomit Boy?" Yang asked pleasantly.

The sheepish expression on the boy's face turned a bit pained, and he began to rub the back of his head.

"Yeah, I'm not living that down for a while, am I?"

Ruby had to stifle a grin. Truth be told, she'd thought the same thing and probably would've blurted out something similar had Yang not beat her to the punch. Remembering that she had basically hoped that the guy's embarrassment would distract people from scrutinizing her, however, turned the amusement into a pang of guilt. Plus, she _had_ wanted to apologize if given the chance, and it was clear she'd been given one.

She mildly elbowed her older sister in the ribs. "Yang!"

"No, it's okay. I get it," the boy said, waving a hand dismissively. "Motion sickness, you know? It's a much more common problem than people let on."

"So how can we help you—" Yang, seeing Ruby's warning glare and readied elbow, paused before she could bestow on him the nickname again.

"Oh! Uh, it's Jaune, Jaune Arc!" the boy supplied. Then, flashing them an awkward smile, he added, "Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue—ladies love it!"

Yang replied with a mildly amused smirk and a roll of the eyes. Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Do they?"

As abruptly as the false bravado had come, the boy, Jaune, deflated. "They will! Well, I-I hope they will. My mom always says that … Er, never mind, that's not the point."

"Eh … heh." Ruby smiled in awkward politeness herself, watching Jaune flail before them. _Wow, and I thought I was bad at talking to people. _

"Get to the point, ladies' man," her sister said, giving the boy a friendly smile to take the sting out of the impatient comment.

"Ah, right. Anyway, ah"—he faced Yang squarely, if a bit stiffly— "I just wanted to apologize."

Both girls blinked. Yang raised an eyebrow. "Apologize? For what?"

"For earlier. You know," His eyes flicked downward. "Me, Vomit Boy … your shoes."

Ruby gawked at him for a second. Then she suddenly broke out giggling. She couldn't help it. Now that she really thought about it, the whole thing was insane. She'd wanted to apologize for her selfishness in being thankful for some other guy's misfortune, and he turns around and apologizes to her first because his misfortune just happened to involve getting puke on her sister's boots. The twisted logic of it all almost seemed like something out of a cheap comedy.

For her part, her sister just beamed at Jaune and waved away his apology. "No harm done, Jaune. Heck, pretty much forgot about it 'til you brought it up."

Jaune's shoulders slumped as he gave out a sigh of relief. "Oh, good. That's good. I was afraid you'd be mad or hate me for it or something."

"'Cause I'm a girl, and girls are obsessed with their shoes?" Yang asked playfully, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"A-wha?" Jaune looked at her blankly before his eyes suddenly widened, and he began shaking his head frantically. "N-no, that's not what I … I didn't mean to imply … I, uh …"

Shaking her head, Yang gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder. Thanks to her natural strength, the clap clanged loudly against Jaune's shoulder armor and put him off balance.

"Relax, Jaune-Jaune. Geez, no wonder you were barfing up a storm. You're way too high-strung."

Ruby, who'd been quietly observing the exchange, finally decided to speak up. Jaune might be about as bad with people as she was, and he'd so far had a much worse day than she'd had. Yet he'd still approached them, two complete strangers who had kinda made fun of him earlier, because he felt that need to make things right. She'd have been way too nervous in that situation, and would probably have messed it up even more somehow. Suddenly, her worries about just wanting to have "normal knees" didn't seem so big in comparison.

"Well … while we're all apologizing," she ventured, "I guess I owe you one too."

"Huh?" Jaune cocked his head to the side, and Ruby felt like giggling again at the overly expressive confusion on his face. It seemed that state came naturally to Jaune.

"I mean, I never called you Vomit Boy—that was all Yang." She pointed at the other girl with her thumb, which the blonde replied to by sticking her tongue out at her. Ruby gave Jaune a lopsided, sheepish smile. "But I kinda thought earlier that, well, 'I'm glad I'm not that guy. I hope he gets the unwanted attention, not me.' So, eh heh, sorry 'bout that."

"Oh, no. No need for that." Jaune shook his head. With a self-effacing smile, he added, "That's perfectly understandable. Who wants to be Jaune the Amazing Vomit Boy when they can be the Astounding—"

Jaune suddenly stopped, apparently realizing that he hadn't gotten around to asking for her name.

Talking to someone as awkward as she was had made her feel more comfortable than she otherwise would've been, so she playfully decided to imitate his earlier introduction.

"Ruby, Ruby Rose. Short, petite, sticks out her tongue—" She turned to Yang and did just that. Then she turned back to Jaune, took on a theatrically overconfident posture, and added, "Ladies love it."

Jaune stared at her for a moment, and the smile froze on Ruby's face. She wondered if maybe her attempt at a joke might've insulted him instead. It wouldn't have been her first social faux pas. It didn't help that she could hear Yang muttering beside her, "Oh god, it's dork at first sight …"

But then Jaune smiled at her and said, "Okay, I change my mind, you make a better Jaune than I do. Tell you what, on the next flight you bring the barf, I bring the bucket."

Ruby laughed and gave him a shove. "Oh, shut up."

Then she caught sight of Yang smiling at the two of them, saying nothing. Ruby looked at her quizzically when she suddenly recognized that the smile her sister now wore was familiar. All too terrifyingly familiar. It was the one she got every time she got it into her head to encourage her to be more sociable, which never ended well. Her eyes widened, and she opened to her mouth to say something.

She never got the chance. Out of nowhere a gaggle of people suddenly ran past her and gathered around Yang, who waved at her cheerily and said, "Well, looks like you two are having fun. And my friends are here. Gotta go catch up. 'Kay, c'ya, bye."

As quickly as her friends had arrived, Yang and the group left, sending her spinning and nearly bowling her over. Jaune had been more alert and had managed to step out of the way.

"Wait, where are you going?!" she demanded as she tried to maintain her balance. "Are we supposed to go to our dorms? Where are our dorms? Do we have dorms?"

She wobbled to a stop. "Ugh … I can't believe her," she muttered.

She toppled over backward, more disorientated from the spinning than she had thought. However, she felt someone catch her from behind before she hit the ground. She looked up and saw Jaune looking down at her with a concerned look on his face.

"You okay?" he asked.

Despite feeling put off by her sister's sudden but inevitable betrayal, she smiled she gently pushed away from to stand on her own. "Yeah. Older sisters, what're you gonna do?"

Jaune stared at her like she'd grown a second head. He looked in the direction Yang had run off too, then looked back at her. Having seen that reaction many times before, Ruby just rolled her eyes slightly and waited for the question, smiling patiently.

"Wait … older _sister_?"

Ruby's smile widened. Maybe she was just happy that at least she hadn't been left completely alone, but the question didn't seem as annoying as it usually was.

* * *

Jaune looked sidelong at Ruby as they headed down the cobblestone path toward entrance of the academy. After his question had prompted a surprisingly detailed elaboration of her exact familial relation with Yang, their conversion had petered to a halt, like it tended to do between socially maladjusted strangers like they both were (or, at least, like he pretended to be). Now they'd settled into an awkward silence, and he took the opportunity to consider what to do next.

He had been a bit disappointed when Yang—who was apparently Ruby's actual older sister—had left. Part of that was because the girl had been very easy on the eyes and had even been friendly enough once he'd broken the ice. Her lavender eyes also made her look quite striking up close. Mostly, though, it was because he'd been left alone with Ruby. Given the blonde's earlier "dork at first sight" comment, he'd been worried that Yang leaving in a hurry had been some sort of misguided attempt to set the younger (by a full two years, apparently) girl up with him.

It wasn't that he was more interested in Yang over Ruby; nor was he nervous about being alone with the latter (in the more hormonal sense of "nervous"). True, Yang was very developed and beautiful, and Ruby was quite cute and had silver eyes as distracting as her sister's lavender ones were striking. Personality-wise, however, neither were his type. Yang struck him as someone who charged headlong at an enemy, grinning all the way; if he had his way, he'd have preferred to charge in the opposite direction, screaming all the way. Ruby, meanwhile, seemed nervously eager about being Beacon while he was more along the lines of nervously terrified.

Still, like many healthy boys his age, he quite found the company of pretty female peers quite enjoyable. However, he also liked to think that he was a bit more pragmatic about such things.

Growing up as a shunned "loser" meant that girls had tended to avoid him. He hadn't really minded that when he was younger. When he _was_ old enough to mind, he'd also become old enough to be a bit more calculating. He'd come to the conclusion that while at that point his cowardly reputation had begun to fade, the reputation for being a well-meaning but useless idiot that he'd been trying to cultivate was incompatible with the experimental attempts at relationships that had begun to preoccupy his peers.

His father liked to say that all women looked for was confidence, and from what Jaune had observed among teenage girls and older women, that was true to an extent. Confidence was also the last thing someone expected from a harmlessly inept nitwit, so he'd contrived to avoid being seen as such, instead preferring a transparently false veneer of it. So while he might've gotten some attention for his looks, few girls considered him a "serious" (as laughably as that adjective could apply to most fickle teenage flings) prospect in the romance department. He'd liked how that added to his overall air of unreliability, so he'd done nothing to dissuade the view.

Sure, he'd disappointed his venal hormone-driven side in the process, but he figured that he'd have plenty of time to indulge it once people wised up, took his ineptitude at face value, and stopped trying to force him into the role of a subpar Hunter or warrior. Then he could find some other much safer lot in life, grow into it, and let his public confidence level "develop" naturally from there. After all, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, and all sorts of people with quietly overlooked mundane roles in society still got girlfriends and, if so inclined, wives. A number even found happiness in their decisions. He could see no reason that shouldn't apply to him.

The few girls who didn't dismiss him as ultimately harmless friendzone-able material often had some confidence issues themselves. Well, that, or they were the type who figured that he'd be easily led on, wrapped around their fingers, and duly dumped at their convenience. He already had enough on plate trying to build his ideal, safely comfortable life without dealing with the inherent minefields of either possibility.

Since Ruby seemed to fit the first type, he really hoped he was a wrong about Yang trying to play matchmaker. He really didn't want to have to deal with that so soon after arriving at Beacon; not when he was still trying to figure out exactly how to play it to come out of the academy with life and limb not too seriously damaged.

Then again, another possibility was that she'd just been trying to get her younger sister to make new friends. He knew all too well how unsubtle and meddlesome people could be when they thought they making another person do something they thought was good for them. At the thought of all the hard training and "live exercises" against Grimm that his family had put him through over the years, his face involuntarily twisted in discomfort.

Not wanting to give the girl beside him the idea that it was directed at her—it wouldn't do to alienate one of his first potential allies so soon—he immediately squelched it.

He clearly hadn't been quick enough since Ruby, in an almost desperate attempt to find something to talk about, suddenly said, "So … I got this thing," before whipping out her collapsible weapon and unfolding it into the largest, most wicked-looking scythe he had ever seen, which she then slammed point-first into the cobblestones.

"Whoa!" he cried out, not expecting that. He wanted to berate the girl not only for her carelessness with a _ginormous live blade_, but also for said carelessness being done while he was within accidental maiming distance.

He said instead, "Is that a scythe?"

She cradled the weapon proudly, placing one hand on what looked like a bolt handle on one side. Jaune saw that the body of the weapon apparently had what looked like a magazine, ejection port, and scope, leading him to realize that …

"It's also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!" she finished the thought for him cheerfully.

He gaped at the incongruity of the design. "A-wha?"

"It's also a gun." She cocked the weapon, her expression eagerly fishing for his opinion.

Jaune had several. He always failed to understand how weapon-makers always seemed to one-up each other in attempting to come up with the most convoluted designs imaginable. This one particularly annoyed him. Who in their right mind would take a weapon sensibly designed to engage at a very safe distance and mate it to a close-range weapon? Especially a close-range weapon that negated the advantage the welcome extra reach its long handle would have lent it by curving the blade inward (toward the user!), making it harder to handle while pulling the enemy toward the wielder instead of pushing said enemy out. It boggled the mind! If he was blessed with a sniper rifle, the only thing he'd put on it would be an even better scope so that he could shoot from even farther out.

Of course, he said none of this. He settled for a lame, "Oh, that's cool."

"So what've you got?" She leaned in expectantly.

"Oh! I, uh ..." He fumbled, a bit nonplussed. He'd never really been asked to show off in such a manner before. Mostly because his reputation had meant that he never had that many friends, and none of them were really that close. That hadn't changed when his reputation had started to "improve." He wouldn't have been inclined to had he been asked anyway. Like most things that were potentially lethal to him, Jaune preferred to be careful around weapons.

But as he looked at Ruby's eager face, he knew there was no excuse he could make not to show her Crocea Mors. Not without ruining the continued atmosphere of goodwill toward him that he was trying to maintain.

"I got this sword." Carefully, he drew out his weapon and showed it to her.

Her silver eyes ran up its blade appreciatively. He mouth formed an _O_ as she went, "Ooooohh!"

Jaune's mind started to take that exchange down an entirely different road, but he ruthlessly quashed it. He flicked the activation switch on his scabbard, and it snapped open into a white heater shield with gold trim. On it was proudly displayed the Arc family crest.

"Yeah, and I've got a shield, too!"

"So, what do they do?" Ruby asked, apparently expecting him to show off some integrated function of the pair.

He was about to make a wry comment regarding Crocea Mors's mundane simplicity, when the girl suddenly reached out to touch the shield. Jaune wasn't quick enough to warn her, and she inadvertently touched off the retraction system. The sudden retraction into scabbard form caused him to lose hold of it, only for the impact on the ground to snap it back open again and send it flying. Jaune suppressed the urge to cuss as he fumbled with the shield. It was exactly things like _this_ that made him avoid showing off with his weapons.

"Jaune, watch out!" Ruby suddenly cried out.

The warning had come too late. In his fumbling, Jaune had failed to see he was stumbling into a pushcart full of luggage until it was too late. He toppled, and somehow the shield met his right foot at the apex of its upswing, sending it flying again. The impact opened several of the large cases, spilling their contents. Jaune heard tinkling sounds all around him as he slammed into the ground. The cases had actually slowed down his fall enough that it didn't actually hurt that much, and the sword had clattered safely away from him when he'd inadvertently lost his grip on it.

Still, the force had been sufficient enough to wind him a bit, and for a moment he gaped, dazed, at colorful glass bottles all around him. The moment quickly passed, however, and he realized to his horror that he was lying in a pile of bottles full Dust—several of them he recognized as dangerously volatile.

In a burst of panic, he jumped upright, cursing himself upon belatedly realizing that such a sudden movement could have accidentally set off one of the jars. The suddenness also caused him to trip forward as he stood, and he fell face-first in a heap atop a pale white-haired girl in a white dress.

"What are you doing?!" the girl shrieked in outrage. "Get off me, you—"

Whatever the girl had been about to say, Jaune never heard it. At that moment, his shield came crashing down onto several of the spilled Dust bottles. Hard.

The world ended.


	3. Chapter 2 - Of Prickly Princesses

Author's note: Well, here it is, Chapter 2. Sorry if I'm not gonna say much in this author's note since my laptop is down and I'm posting this from a phablet. Kingsoft Office is alright, but the damned phablet interface can be iffy. I will say that pairings are still undecided, but some hints here and there with a few of the girls that could be taken for shipping if needed, just so I can have something to build on whatever the final choice. The quotes I use are mostly modified real quotes. The quote for this one, for example, is from the Indian philosopher Chanakya, also known as Kautilya or Vishnu Gupta. His counterpart in this universe was some old adviser from the distant past of Vale.

* * *

**Chapter 2 - Of Prickly Princesses, Preposterous Pajamas, and Prospective Partners**

_"Friendships are built on self-interest." —Kautilya the Sagacious, historical Valian political thinker_

* * *

Keeping to one side, Blake Belladonna quietly allowed the people to move past her. Most of the students were taking in the sight of the academy grounds, gawking openly at the sheer scale and grandeur of the institution. Brushing back a stray lock of black hair, she did so as well, her golden eyes—as did those of many there—gravitating toward the massive central light tower. Idly, she wondered what thoughts the imposing sight of the edifice was inspiring in her fellow teens. Perhaps it was dawning on them that today was the start of _the_ chance for them to prove themselves as Huntsmen and Huntresses.

For her it was a second chance; a chance at redemption.

Huntsmen and Huntresses helped people. All she ever wanted to do was help people—_all_ people. For years, she thought she'd been doing that with the White Fang.

Yet again, the memories came flooding back. She tried to keep her ears from twitching at all the guilt; even after all these years she still slipped from time to time. Not her humanlike ears, but the feline second set hidden beneath her bow—the set marking her as a Faunus.

Faunus had always been treated poorly by humans, subjugated and brutalized because their various animal traits made them little better than actual animals in the minds of many humans. It had taken one bloody uprising after another, then finally a brutal, protracted war before things had started to get better. And even then, not much better. Faunus had merely "risen" from "man-shaped animal" to the exalted status of "not quite good enough to be treated like _real_ people."

The White Fang had tried to change that. With protests and civil disobedience at first, to show everyone that while they were willing to struggle long and hard for the right to be treated equally, they were just as willing to do so peacefully. After all, wasn't that what equality meant? If Faunus and human alike were just as much people as each other, fighting about it just made little sense. It was ultimately better for both if they weren't at each other's throats most of the time.

As a child, Blake had joined firmly believing that. She still did—but over time the White Fang had started to believe that less and less. While they had tried to keep their protests as peaceful as possible, those responding to them often held no such compunction. And people can only turn the other cheek so much before the injuries and deaths started piling up.

At first, it had started out as self-defense and "active deterrence." And the White Fang had stuck to purely defensive actions. They just decided along the way that the best defense was a good offense. For a time she'd convinced herself they were right, too. That _he_ was right.

And things _had_ started to change; humans had become less openly hostile to Faunus ...

_"What about the crew members?"_

_"What_ about _them?"_

... because humans had become openly fearful of them. Faunus were dangerous, deadly. So they hated them all the more, resented them all the more. Just like violent, mindless beasts.

Just like Grimm.

Her lips tightened, and she looked to the side, as if averting her eyes in the face of furious condemnation. As she did, she realized that the other students had left her behind. She'd been lost in her thoughts longer than she'd realized.

With a rueful shake of her head, she began walking again. She also took out one of her books and started to read. As a child she had often found solace in those pages, when the oppression she'd experience in real life had become too much to bear. All too often it seemed that these days she sought their refuge from what she had let herself become.

Blake had barely enough time to lose herself in the story, however, when an incredibly loud explosion startled her. She snapped the book shut as her other hand reached for Gambol Shroud, the weapon strapped to her back. Tensing, she looked around alertly, wondering if she hadn't left her past behind her as much as she'd thought.

A flash in the air caught her eye, and she looked up just in time to see something falling toward her. She jumped aside quickly, and the object slammed into the place she'd been standing. It was a ... shield? The shield caromed off the cobblestones, rapidly collapsing into what looked like a scabbard as it did so, before clattering to a stop in front of her.

She regarded it for a moment, blinking once, before turning to the direction of the blast. Warily, she also continued to scan the surroundings—it had sounded quite large, after all.

As the clouds of dust the explosion had thrown up cleared, she saw a small crater in the middle of the main path to the academy entrance. She saw people sprawled around the crater. One was a girl in a black dress and a red hood, looking a bit dazed but unhurt. The second was a lightly armored blond boy sprawled facedown atop another girl—she couldn't see much of her beneath the boy's body. Those two didn't seem to be moving. Around them were several men in servants' uniforms.

Blake started forward to help, but then stopped herself, wondering if the apparent attack on those people was part of some scheme to draw her out and distract her at the same time. She couldn't see any signs of anyone else, but that would be the point in a half-competent ambush.

At that point, some of the dust clouds had been blown in her direction by the wind, and she caught a whiff. As expected, there was the distinctive tang of Dust. However, there seemed to be a variety of Dust scents. Many were the volatile types that could be used for explosives, but about as many smelled like the types of Dust no one would use in even the crudest improvised bombs because they'd dampen or even stop any potential explosion in sufficient quantities.

That thought made her relax slightly. An accident, then, not some sort of attack; some student's personal Dust supply now gone in a moment of carelessness. It happened often enough to be a common school joke pretty much everywhere, after all. Debris that looked like the remains of carrying cases seemed to support that idea.

She supposed someone could have placed a bomb among someone's luggage to make it look like such an accident, but she would have smelled the difference. Not knowing the exact proportions of Dust types in someone else's luggage, any potential bomber would have to err on the side of pragmatism and load an amount of explosive Dust easily detectable to an experienced nose (and she had more than enough familiarity with explosives, improvised or otherwise). The nature of the heterogeneity that she smelled didn't support that.

Quickly, she moved to help, stowing her weapon and picking up and clipping on the errant shield/scabbard along the way. She saw the boy get rolled off the girl by the servants and get plopped unceremoniously to the ground as they turned to help up the white-dressed girl he'd been lying on. The red-hooded girl let out a cry of outrage, moving quickly to the boy's side. He remained unmoving as the girl in the white dress stood up and began dusting herself off and yelling angrily, her even whiter and now-disheveled side ponytail bobbing with every gesture.

For the second time Blake stopped. She recognized that girl all too well. It was Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, whose shady dealings ended up victimizing Faunus more often than not while the law did nothing to stop them. If not due to indifference to Faunus, then it was because the company was simply too big to touch because of the sheer influence being the largest Dust supplier on Vytal lent it. The same cruel company that she'd grown to well and truly hate over the years.

She found herself swept away in the sudden wave of animosity, glaring at the white-haired girl as she argued with the red-hooded girl. But as quickly as the feeling came, it fizzled out.

This was also the same Schnee Dust Company whose workers fell victim to retaliatory attacks by the White Fang. Often enough workers whose only crime was having no one else to work for because the company had bought everything else. The same company whose founding family were often targeted for assassination or kidnapping, even members far too young or distantly related to have been actively involved in any of the company's questionable business at the time.

"You tried to kill me!"

Startled, Blake flinched at the accusation before realizing that it was directed at the red-hooded girl, who was cradling the head of the still-unconscious blond.

"Look, we're sorry! It was an accident!" Red Hood protested.

"Sorry?! Look at the damage your brain-dead boyfriend caused!" The Schnee scion wagged a furious finger at the pair.

"He's not my—" the other girl began before stopping abruptly, apparently realizing how silly getting into that argument would be given the situation. "Look, I think he's really hurt. You can blame either of us as much as you want later—heck, blame me for setting off his shield—but please help. I think we need to call someone."

"And just whose fault is that?" the Schnee girl demanded. Despite her tone, she knelt down beside the boy.

"Hey, he got hurt shielding _you_ from the blast!"

"That _he_ caused!"

"Are you gonna help or not, Princess?"

"It's heiress, actually," Blake cut in, figuring it was a good time to forestall further argument and offer help at the same time. "Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. One of the largest producers of energy propellant in the world."

Both girls turned at the sound of her voice. The Schnee heiress smiled, choosing to take her description as a compliment.

"Finally! Some recognition!"

Blake bit back the urge to say exactly what else she recognized the Schnee family business for; there were more important things at hand. Instead, she gestured at the boy. "Need help?"

Still smiling, Weiss waved her off. "Thank you, but there'll be no need for that."

She faced one of her servants and said, "Find one of the staff and tell them what happened." Turning to another one, she continued, "See if the first-aid kit is in one of the cases that survived and try to help if you can find it." To a third, she commanded, "See what got destroyed and call for replacements at home." She glanced back to the hooded girl. "Let's not tell Father about the carelessness of _others_. This time."

The other girl glared at her but said nothing, probably because the Schnee girl, petulant imperiousness aside, _was_ helping out. The servants just said, "Yes, milady," in unison and quickly went about then assigned tasks.

The hooded girl let out a slow breath before, a bit grudgingly, saying, "Thanks."

She got a glare in return. "You really want to thank me?" The heiress pulled a pamphlet titled _DUST for dummies and other Inadequate Individuals_ from her clothes. "Hand this over to Tall, Dark, and Scraggly over there when he wakes up."

The hooded girl blinked. "What's this?"

She soon regretted asking. Weiss began to recite a memorized speech at her, which got faster and faster with every word, "The Schnee Dust Company is not responsible for any injuries or damages sustained while operating a Schnee Dust Company product. Althoughnotmandatory,theSchneeFamilyhighlyencouragescustomerstoreadandfamiliarizethemselveswiththiseasytofollowguidetoDustapplicationsandpracticesinthefield."

"A-wah?" the speech's victim blurted as she found the pamphlet pressed onto her hand.

For her part, Blake felt about as confused. She'd only come here to offer her help. Now that Weiss had detailed her servants to the task, there was really nothing meaningful she could do. But she couldn't just walk away so soon after extending her offer either; it just didn't seem right.

She sighed quietly. This was why she usually didn't seek out people; being practically a revolutionary for the better part of her child- and teenhood hadn't left her much in the way of social protocol. And that was without the added awkwardness of having one of the people she was talking to being an heiress to the company she'd attacked with the White Fang.

At any rate, Weiss made her own decision before she could.

"Also, don't ever approach me again, both of you," she said to the pair on the ground. "Now, since you've delayed me enough ..."

Without waiting for a reply, she turned around, gave Blake a polite smile and nod, and walked off in a huff. Blake stared at her back as she swaggered away, wondering what to make of all this.

"Um ..." came a voice from her side, and she looked down at the hooded girl. She smiled at Blake uncertainly. "Uh, hi. Ruby, I'm thanks! Er, I mean, thanks, I'm Ruby."

Blake blinked at her. "For what?"

"Huh?" Ruby's silver eyes blinked back. "What do you ... oh, uh, Ruby. Guess it sands for—"

"No," Blake interrupted her nervous stammering. "What did you thank me for?"

Ruby looked at her quizzically. "Well, you came over to help Jaune—ah, that's him by the way." She pointed at the still knocked out boy, whose head was on her lap. "So thanks."

She shook her own head in response. "I didn't really do anything."

"Yeah, but you were going to." Ruby gave her a reassuring smile. "It's the thought that counts! Ah, right?"

She glanced away, considering the words. Finally, she said, "No, not always."

Ruby opened her mouth to reply to that, but then closed it again. She said nothing for a while, and Blake let the silence stretch, having nothing more to say herself.

She knew most people would find such a silence uncomfortable and try to fill it with any sort of chatter—and Ruby probably wanted to do just that. Blake wondered why they bothered. To her meaningless chitchat just to avoid silence always seemed way more awkward and discomfiting than staying quiet. If you had nothing to say, then that was that.

She began to reach for her book, when a white glow suddenly distracted her. It was coming from the boy, Jaune. The glow started dimly at first but then suddenly flashed bright, startling a yelp out of Ruby and drawing looks from the Schnee servants. Blake found her eyes widening as the scruffs and scratches from the explosion began to fade from Jaune's skin. As suddenly as it had come, the glow disappeared, and everyone found themselves staring at the now completely healed boy. The only sign he'd had several cases of Dust explode near him was the soot on his well-worn armor and clothing.

Blake saw Jaune's eyelids flutter before his eyes suddenly opened, by happenstance looking right into hers. They were blue. She blinked. He blinked.

She was starting to get a bit annoyed at all the blinking happening today.

He continued to look at her, a confused expression on his face. Getting a bit uncomfortable at the scrutiny, she reached for shield-scabbard that she suddenly remembered she'd picked up and handed it out to him.

"Here."

Jaune just gazed at that for a moment too before reaching out and taking it.

"T-thanks," he began shakily. "Um ...?"

"Blake," Ruby supplied. "She's Blake."

The familiarity of the girl's voice and face apparently shook Jaune out of his post-unconsciousness disorientation since Blake saw a look of recognition and alertness slolwly make its way across his face. Then he seemingly recognized exactly where his head was laid on, and he became _very_ alert.

"Gah!" he cried out as he suddenly sat upright, so fast that he almost bowled Ruby over. His face was glowing again—this time, a bright red.

Despite herself, Blake found a small smirk crawling onto her face as she watched him sputtering apologies even as Ruby tried to reassure him that he'd been a perfect gentleman when he was unconscious.

"W-well, still ..." he stammered, "I was ... ah, er ... why was I on your la—lying like that anyway?"

He looked questioningly at Ruby, then at her. She just raised a single eyebrow and tilted her head, gesturing around her. Jaune glanced at the crater and the gawking servants milling about the debris. Blue eyes widened.

"Oh ... oh no. Don't tell me ..."

Sheepishly, Ruby handed him the pamphlet.

* * *

Ruby shot Jaune another worried look as they trudged toward the conference hall for the orientation. Shortly after she had explained exactly what had happened while he'd been out cold, the servant that irate heiress had sent to look for help had come back with one of the faculty. After another round of explanations for the teacher and assurances from Jaune that he needed no medical attention after all, the teacher had sighed and sent them on their way, muttering something about careless kids and annoyed groundskeepers. On the way Jaune had clammed up, a stricken look on his face and the pamphlet she'd handed to him clenched in a death grip.

She could only imagine the kind of day he was having. Puking on the airship must have been mortifying enough, but stumbling into some rich girl's luggage and having it blow up in his face? All her worries about being seen as weird for being younger than everyone else just seemed so silly and selfish in comparison.

Her mouth opened as she struggled to come up with something reassuring, but then it closed again. Just what could she say to someone whose day had been as bad as Jaune's? Also, part of her was pretty sure that the whole thing might have been her fault for carelessly touching his shield, so she was also concerned that Jaune was angry with her at the moment.

Helplessly, she turned to Blake, who was walking behind her. But the quiet girl had her nose buried in a book. Ruby sighed. It seemed there was only one thing to say.

"Jaune?" she ventured, tentatively.

To her relief, he didn't seem mad at her when he turned to her. The grip on the now crumpled pamphlet even relaxed.

"Sorry. About the shield, I mean." She winced. This was the second time she was apologizing to Jaune today. She really hoped this wasn't going to be a running thing between them.

She continued, "If I hadn't set it off, maybe the whole thing wouldn't have happened."

Jaune said nothing for a moment, but then he gave her a small smile and shook his head. "Nah, don't worry about it. Wouldn't have happened if I caught it too. Not like we meant to blow me up. It just happens ... uh, accidents, I mean. Not me blowing up. At least I hope not."

Despite herself, Ruby smiled. It amazed her how Jaune could just joke about it like that. If that had happened to her she'd probably never be able to show her face in public again.

"Besides," Jaune continued, "at least I'm not Vomit Boy anymore. Crater Face, at your service! Clearly, I'm moving up in the world."

Ruby burst out laughing. If Yang had to force her to socialize, she was glad she'd managed to befriend someone like Jaune.

Behind them Blake peered up at them over the top of her book for a moment before going back to reading.

* * *

As they entered the conference hall, Jaune thought he had handled that pretty well. Extremely well, actually, considering that he had had a not insignificant amount of Dust _detonate in close proximity_. He was just lucky that his Aura was just as dedicated to keeping himself healthy and (reasonably) happy as he was. Although it did not bode well that he'd already used on his very first day at Beacon. He usually preferred to leave as much of its precious life-preserving, injury-healing energy in reserve as possible.

Nor did it bode well that he was now on the personal shit list of one of Vytal's rich and powerful. Another thing he had learned from the long and sordidly colorful legacy of the Arc Family was that powerful people were too often inclined to bring every bit of their resources and influence down upon you if they felt like it. He would never forget the story of that ancestor who had learned a very personal understanding of the art of barbecue by pissing off some clergyman. And he wanted to be seen as a screw-up just enough to wash out, not as a danger to others and thus hated with a passion.

From what Ruby had told him, though, the Schnee heiress had seen fit to send him some help, so maybe she wasn't nursing that big of a grudge. Maybe. You really couldn't be sure around rich people (or people in general, really). At any rate, it was another thing he needed to do damage control for. Of course, he'd probably need to steer clear of her for a while, to give her time to cool off and be in a more receptive mood.

From Ruby's description of her appearance, that shouldn't be too hard. White hair, pale white skin, and mostly white clothing? He could spot that a mile away. Well, except maybe in winter.

He surreptitiously glanced at Ruby, who was a lot more chipper how that he had "forgiven" her. Not really, of course. Without her carelessness with Crocea Mors, he wouldn't have been fumbling with his shield and dangerously distracted. But holding a grudge himself would have been counterproductive, especially since the girl was already guilting herself over it. Building on that while letting her keep the positive impression she had of him was a better strategy.

His eyes slid over to the other girl, Blake, who was still reading quietly and pointedly ignoring them. For now he knew little about her other than the fact that she was quiet, standoffish, and liked to read. She'd also apparently been willing to help him out when he was unconscious. If that willingness could be extended for later, whether he was conscious or otherwise, then so much the better.

"Ruby! Jaune! Over here! I saved you guys a spot!" a familiar voice broke into his thoughts. He looked around and quickly spotted Yang waving them over.

Ruby shot a half-wave in response before turning to Blake. "Oh! Hey, we gotta go! See you after the ..."

Her voice trailed off once she saw that Blake was already walking away. Ruby exchanged a brief look with him.

"Thanks again!" he called out, just to reinforce the barely established connection.

He received only the slightest of pauses and what might have been a head tilt in response. From an obviously aloof, introverted type, though, that was a promising response. He exchanged another look with Ruby, shrugging and smiling wordlessly, as they walked to where her older sibling was waiting.

"How's your first day going, guys?" the blonde said by way of greeting.

"You mean since you ditched us and Jaune exploded?" the younger girl huffed irritatedly.

"Yikes; meltdown already?" Then Yang frowned and turned to Jaune. "Wait ... exploded? At Ruby?"

Recognizing danger when he saw it, he immediately started waving his arms. "N-no! I _literally_ exploded! There's a hole in front of the school and everything!"

The frown faded into a slow smile. "Are you two being sarcastic?"

"I wish!" her sister scoffed before he could explain. "I accidentally set off Jaune's shield, and he trips over some crabby girl's luggage, and then the shield comes down, and the Dust exploded, and Jaune fainted, and the girl was yelling, and I was yelling, and ... and—"

"And that's how Vomit Boy grew up—er, blew up—into Crater Face. The end," he joked to give Ruby a chance to catch her breath.

Yang turned a raised eyebrow at them, trying to decide if they were having her on, when Jaune saw her attention drawn to something behind him. He followed the direction of her gaze and saw a girl with a very distinctive white motif in the distance, glaring daggers at them—at _him_. Jaune cringed and waved at the girl nervously, apologetically.

That only made the glare darken, and for a second Jaune was afraid the girl was going to march over and give him a piece of her mind. His mind raced, trying to come up with some way to glib into the best—or at least a salvageable—solution. Mercifully, it didn't come to that; with a final snort of petulant contempt, the girl turned away.

Sometimes the universe was generous like that. Mostly to get your guard down for the next time it showed its cruel streak. Jaune knew it too well to be thankful for that small favor. Besides, given everything that had happened, the moment of respite just seemed like spiteful mockery.

With a dawning understanding on her face, Yang studied his clothing closely, finally noticing the soot and slight singing. She even sniffed at the air a bit, and her eyes widened at the burnt-Dust smell that had stubbornly clung to him since the ... incident.

"Oh my God, you really exploded ..."

He just rubbed the back of his head with one hand and gave an embarrassed half-shrug with the other.

"See, this is what happens when you try to make people make friends," Ruby crowed with almost perverse relish, and an entirely too perversely positive perspective on _his_ nearly being blown off the side of the cliff.

"Well ..." Yang tried to rally. "How about that girl you were talking to when you came in. You guys made one friend, so at least it wasn't a total disaster."

Now Jaune was starting to get annoyed. Yes, clearly, the art of making inane school friendships was the thing to take away from his ordeal.

Still, he showed none of the ill feeling on his face and said, "Yeah, pretty sure Snow Angel over there—and don't ever tell her I called her that—counts as some sort of ..."

"... negative friend?" Ruby supplied helpfully.

"Yes, exactly."

Ruby nodded self-indulgently at her own wisdom. Then she brightened at him. "Well, hey, at least we got us. Dork Solidarity! Hail Foot-in-Mouth!"

"Sounds like a disease," Yang observed. Still, she was smiling, clearly happy at her younger sibling being social.

_Good for you!_ he groused mentally. _Hey, remember the guy who exploded?_

Out loud he said, "You can be our first honorary member."

He relished the look of horror on Yang's face. Ruby snickered.

* * *

To his tremendous relief, his apparently worsening luck hadn't continued deteriorating, and the rest of the day had passed uneventfully (one of his favorite words in the imaginatively cruel universe).

About the only thing worth worrying about was the announcement that there'd be some kind of initiation tomorrow, and Jaune had a sneaking suspicion on exactly what that entailed. Having failed to accidentally do him in the first day, Beacon was now going to actively try in the second. Oh, joy. It didn't bode well that the headmaster's speech had been bluntly dismissive about their chances. (Although, after all the years of self-assured platitudes and boasting from his family, the candor was a bit refreshing.)

Well, there was also the worry that even now his luck could still take yet another sour turn. But that was always there anyway, and he'd learned to live with it.

One thing that had improved his mood was the electronic Scrolls they had been handed after the welcoming ceremony. Each one was filled with a lot of useful functions and information, and Jaune had spent most of the afternoon and evening looking them up and thinking of ways they could help him stay alive.

The most promising so far was the delivery function of the academy's equipment lockers. You could key in coordinates, which could also be done via Scroll, and it would literally rocket out to those coordinates. It was designed to give students their weapons quickly in the event that they were in the lockers when they urgently needed them. In itself that was already a helpful enough function. However, to Jaune's mind it also screamed _escape pod_.

There was the issue of possible injury, but he figured that a reliable, tried-and-true system designed to deliver equipment fast and undamaged would be survivable enough. It would just be a last resort measure, anyway, and was attractive enough for that purpose. Of course, he'd have to check if he could fit in one should the need arise. He hadn't thought to check when he'd stowed Crocea Mors earlier since he hadn't read up on the function then. He'd go do just that tomorrow morning.

Jaune looked up from the Scroll, rubbing his now bloodshot eyes, and was surprised to see how dark it had gotten. He'd been more engrossed with the information on the device than he'd thought. Looking around at the ballroom they'd all been assigned as temporary sleeping quarters, he saw that many of his fellow first years were already in nightwear. To let his eyes rest, he indulged in the view of peers of the opposite gender in an astounding variety of night attire. He was hardly the only one, male or female, doing so.

He finally left for a quick shower after while. And speaking of nightwear, he smiled with a different sort of satisfaction in anticipation of what he'd unleash when he returned.

Now, Jaune cared about his self-image only as far as it influenced people in a way favorable to him. As long as it didn't spur them to actively antagonize him or force him into unwanted confrontation, how negatively others thought of him didn't really matter. Still, he was human, and such attitudes could get annoying sometimes. So whenever the opportunity to flip a bird at what they thought he should be without real consequences presented itself, he'd take it and have a lot of fun with it. Especially if it actually helped with the impression he was trying to build.

He spent so much time trying to ensure his continued well-being that he rarely had time to have any real fun. It was nice to have the chance every once in a while.

With that in mind, he strutted out of showers, chest out and steps confident, in a pair of light blue footie pajamas. Despite being footed, he also threw on a pair of matching blue bunny slippers. If there was such a thing as a fashion police, he'd still get away clean because they'd be too apoplectic when they beheld him in all his glory.

The reactions of the people he ran into along the way were exactly as expected. True, some laughed or shot him looks of pity or disgust; most, though, were slack-jawed at the sight of a seventeen-year-old boy sauntering _proudly_ in PJs that a seven-year-old would have started to see as too embarrassing. The absolute incredulity was just too entertaining, and the more he enjoyed himself the jauntier his steps became. He even indulged himself further when he started imagining a suitably grandiose soundtrack in his head.

He realized that maybe he'd gone a bit too far when he came across the stern face of the beautiful, bespectacled blonde that was Professor Goodwitch and gave her an exaggerated finger point, wink, and tongue click. It had been meant to look cluelessly ridiculous. The look she gave him in response caused the smile on his face to freeze, and his steps became very hurried. He should have known that that woman not only looked like she took herself a little too seriously, she was singularly humorless as well. Lesson learned.

Still, he didn't allow the encounter to dampen his spirits that much, and he resumed playing the oblivious fool as he reentered the ballroom. There he saw that he wasn't he the only one putting on a show. A bunch of boys were strutting about wearing only pajama bottoms, play fighting and flexing in front of a few appreciative girls.

Jaune noted that one of the girls was Yang. She was lying on a mattress beside her sister's own while Ruby was herself scrawling something on a notebook. He appreciated their sleeping clothes for a bit, especially Yang's short shorts.

He also smirked as an idea came to him. "Obliviously," he walked into her field of vision. He gave her a friendly smile and wave as he moved past, and he had to struggle not to laugh as her beefcake-eating leer turned into a cringe. Wiping her smiles off her face was starting to get too fun for his own good.

After what had been a really lousy day, just messing around while quietly reinforcing his budding reputation as a goofball was cathartic. Naturally, that was when things went wrong.

He'd been so distracted by the blonde's stricken expression that he walked into somebody.

"Whoa! Sorry 'bout ..." he trailed off. It was the worse somebody to literally bump into.

_Shitshitshit!_ He'd made the mistake of getting carried away by his need to de-stress, and he mentally kicked himself for a fool. He should have taken the encounter with the professor as the warning it was.

"You!" the Schnee heiress shrieked in her blue nightdress. "Are you singularly incapable of watching where you are going?!"

"I'm really, really sorry!" He cursed himself in his mind for having nothing better to say; he'd been hoping to avoid the girl until her anger had faded. "It won't happen again!"

"This is 'again,' you dunce!" She shook a finger in his face. "Maybe you don't remember because you were unconscious, but last time you bumbled into me you almost blew us to the moons!"

"Hey, come on, Weiss," Ruby said, coming to his aid. Her sister was close behind her. "He said he was sorry. He's been sorry the whole day."

_Boy, am I ever,_ he thought. At least, the intervention would give him time to gather his wits. And further solidify the sentiment that he was someone they would willing help out in Yang and Ruby's minds.

Weiss gave Ruby an equally withering look. "'Sorry' isn't good enough if you're so stupid you keep making the same mistakes!"

"That was uncalled for, Princess!" Ruby actually looked like she wanted to shove Weiss to the ground.

"It's entirely called for! And I thought I told you to tell him that both of you should stay away from me."

An increasingly angry Yang joined the fray. "Yeah? You know what else is entirely called for, you ..."

Jaune edged away quietly as the three escalated into an increasingly loud and incoherent shouting match. He was going to keep on going until he could slip away, but then he realized that other people in the room were observing them. A resigned look came over his face, knowing that he couldn't escape now. He wanted to be seen as a nice enough but incompetent screw-up, not someone who'd just abandon his friends when the going got tough. He would, of course, but only if he could get away with it.

He thought idly of pulling out Scroll and testing his locker-as-escape pod idea right now. Just imagining the looks on everyone's faces when a rocket punched into the ballroom just so he could climb into it, bid everyone a cheerful goodbye, and blast off to safety was appealing at this moment. Of course, it would probably just return to the locker room, but he'd still be out of here.

Oh well, it was nice to dream, but he'd save it for a real emergency.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone else approach. It was Blake in a fetching black yutaka—his did a quick, appreciative sweep—and she was carrying a candleholder in one hand and a book in another. He nodded and flashed her a somewhat embarrassed smile in greeting. He got a faint tilt of the head for his trouble, as well as a slightly accusatory look. He chose to ignore the latter.

To the arguing girls, she said, "You know, some of us are trying to read"—her gaze momentarily moved to the other mattresses and sleeping bags—"or sleep."

The din died down abruptly as they turned to look at her. Jaune was content to keep quiet and let the girls do all the work sorting it out amongst themselves. It wasn't like he had asked for them to argue on his behalf.

"Guys, she's right! People _are_ trying to sleep!" Ruby agreed.

"You're the one who came over to argue," Weiss retorted. "You always fight your useless boyfriend's own battles for him?"

_That's the idea,_ Jaune thought irreverently. _Well, the not fighting my own battles part, at least._

"He's not my—" the fifteen-year-old shouted.

"Don't talk to my sister like tha—" Yang added.

And the argument flared up yet again. Blake rolled her eyes and, without warning, blew out the candles. Grateful for the cover of sudden darkness, Jaune quietly slipped away even as the heated exchange continued in the dark.

Not quite quietly enough, it seemed, since he suddenly heard Blake call out in his direction, "You're welcome."

Jaune paused and turned toward her, or at least to where he thought she was in the darkness, wondering how she'd heard him. He was good at slipping away quietly.

Dismissing the thought as unimportant for now, he turned away. Tomorrow's initiation was liable to be taxing, so he needed to get some decent rest. And the earlier he slept, the earlier he could be up, giving him more time to investigate the useful details on his Scroll.

* * *

As the first rays of sunlight began to shine brighter and brighter through the tall windows of Beacon Academy's ballroom, a pair of green eyes fluttered open. With little hesitation, Pyrrha Nikos pulled herself out of her sleeping bag, stowed it neatly, and began her morning exercises. She was one of the first students up, and most of the others were still soundly asleep even as her usual morning regime concluded.

Heading out to the women's showers, she politely greeted the few awake first years that she came across. Most managed a groggy, perfunctory mumble in response; the only one who had greeted her cheerfully was a bubbly orange-haired, turquoise-eyed girl who bounded out the showers energetically. Pyrrha was actually a bit astonished at her energy. Her morning exercises were quite refreshing and useful in shaking away the last vestiges of sleep, but she doubted she could be that active so early herself.

After a nice, quick bath, she pulled her long red hair into a ponytail, put on her standard set of gold-trimmed, bronze-colored combat wear, and made her way to the locker rooms to retrieve her weapons. Years of experience under Sanctum's almost obsessive weapons proficiency training made her feel incomplete in combat gear without her trusty Milo and Akouo.

She came across more students on the way, and since a number had been awake for a while now, half of the greetings she received actually had coherent words. And from those Pyrrha received more than a few looks of recognition and enthusiastic fawning. Having won the Mistral Region Tournaments four years in a row, she'd seen more than her share of such responses. It had been awkward at first—and still—but she'd learned to cope with it. She still wore the fame a bit uncomfortably even to this day, but dwelling on the inconveniences it sometimes caused her wouldn't have done anything productive.

As always, she preferred focusing on the positives and moving forward. It was nice to have her hard work recognized, and part of her actually found the product endorsements pretty cool, even if the products she'd sometimes found her face on were of questionable quality. And while her fame had made many approach her with ulterior motives, and quite a few could be obnoxious or untoward, most people were harmless enough and just wanted to express their enthusiasm. No reason she couldn't spare a few moments of polite interaction.

Still, she found it a bit of a respite when she saw that, this early in the morning, the locker room was mostly deserted. In fact, the only other person there seemed to be halfway inside a locker, with only one arm and leg fully visible. Pyrrha could hear him mumbling to himself.

"Hrm ... a bit of a tight fit, but enough room to work with. If only I knew the exact thrust-to-weight ratio ..."

The oddity of the sight caused her to stare for a moment. Reminding herself that staring was impolite, however, she looked to leave the schoolmate to his own devices. Or she would have, if the boy in the locker hadn't decided to poke his head out at that moment. Suddenly, he had her full attention.

Pyrrha couldn't believe her luck. It was _him_. The blond boy who had caught her eye at the ceremony yesterday. He looked nice, and she hadn't been shy about looking. From what she had seen, also nice enough ... to a few girls. But he hadn't seemed like the flighty, womanizing type, and the interactions she'd observed had been jocular and friendly, not flirtatious. She'd been quite happy at that thought, and liked what she'd seen.

She'd actually planned to approach him and introduce herself after the ceremony, but had lost sight of him and his friends in the press of the exiting crowd of students. When she spotted him again in the ballroom, he'd been so focused on studying the Scroll that she hadn't wanted to bother him. He'd continued reading late into the night, and she'd turned in early. A studious type, it seemed. Nothing wrong with that in her reckoning.

Like many teenagers she had started becoming attracted to others, and had attracted quite a bit of attention herself. Her status, however, had made the usual difficulties of learning what to do with those feelings a lot more complicated. Many seemed intimidated by her status and often hesitated approaching her, or they shied away from her interest for fear of not being "worthy" of her. It was frustrating since no amount of reassurance could convince them otherwise. On the other end of the spectrum, many who confidently approached her had the tendency to be a bit too confident, more than enough to fit her "exalted" reputation in their minds. Or they tried to act the part, convinced that was how to "match" her. She couldn't convince them otherwise either, provided that they were willing to be convinced in the first place.

As such, her attempts at relationships rarely ended well, or died before they could even start. Looking at the boy before her, she decided that she wasn't going to miss this chance to change that.

"Good morning," she greeted pleasantly.

He jerked suddenly and turned to her. The he glanced at the locker before nervously looking at her again, clearly embarrassed to have been seen studying the technical details of it so closely. Pyrrha felt a bit guilty about startling him, but his surprised expression had been quite charming. She struggled not to let her smile widen at the thought; she didn't want to end up scaring him away.

"Oh, hey. Uh, morning," he finally answered, trying to sound casual. "Didn't notice you there, uh ..."

"Pyrrha," she answered the prompt. "Pyrnha Nikos."

She waited for the familiar recognition to dawn on his face ... and hoped it wouldn't lead to similarly familiar and disappointing results. He studied her briefly, and to her pleasant surprise the recognition never came. It was rare to meet someone who didn't know of her by reputation—the price of franchise deals and media coverage—and cherished the times it happened.

"Jaune, Jaune Arc," was the reply. "Professional Amateur Locker Inspector, at your service. How can I help you?

Pyrrha grinned at small joke. A sense of humor was a plus, provided it wasn't used to belittle others. This had been used to help facilitate continued friendly interaction, which was a good sign.

"I was just going to my locker," she explained. "I saw you in the neighborhood and wanted to say hello."

"Oh," was all he said at first. Then he smiled, a bit hesitantly, and stuck out his hand. "Well, hello then."

This was going better than expected, and she eagerly took his hand in her own.

"Hello again," she said happily as they shook hands. Jaune did it a bit gingerly, so to put him at ease she decided to talk about something of interest to him. "I noticed that you mentioned something about the thrust of the rockets of your locker. A hobby, I take it?"

Pyrrha tried to sound both neutral and interested about the topic. She knew that people with esoteric interests often had to put up with judgmental attitudes and even bullying, and the absolute last thing she wanted to be perceived as was as someone mocking and condescending. She despised bullying on principle and would be horrified to be thought of as a bully herself. It was bad enough with the Grimm preying on everyone. The last thing people needed was to prey on each other, in any kind of sense of the term.

Despite her efforts, Jaune still seemed a bit hesitant and evasive about answering the question. She wondered if maybe she should have tried another track after all.

"Eheh, not really," he finally said, a sheepish grin on his face. "Just, you know, familiarizing myself with the school and its ... uh, school stuff. Yeah."

Definitely the wrong track bringing it up, she decided. Well, she was trying to get know a stranger, so there'd be some uncertainty involved. And as defensive as Jaune seemed about his hobby, he didn't look like he wanted to stop talking.

Before she could continue, though, he seemed to spot something behind her, and he froze. She was about to see what that was about when he, looking mildly panicked, suddenly said, "Uh, hold that thought. Left, er, wallet. Locker. Gonna check. Now! Bye!"

He all but jumped into the locker and slammed it shut. Pyrrha gaped, at once stunned and disappointed. What on Remnant could have spooked him so much?

A quick glance over her shoulder revealed nothing but a white-haired girl in a white dress. Why was Jaune so desperate to avoid her?

At that moment, the girl locked eyes with hers, smiled, and started walking toward her. Still not entirely sure what was going on, she just smiled back. Maybe she could find out. Although she did feel a little pique at having been interrupted by whatever this was about.

"Hello, good morning," she greeted when the girl was close enough.

"Good morning," was the agreeable response. "I'm sorry if I'm being a bother but, I have to ask—you're Pyrrha Nikos, aren't you?"

Patiently, Pyrrha smiled. The same old song and dance routine, it seemed. "Yes, I am. And you would be Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, if I'm not mistaken."

"Indeed I am," Weiss acknowledged, a pleased smile on her face. Unlike her, the heiress didn't mind the recognition at all. "I am an ardent admirer of your work, and I just couldn't pass on the privilege of actually meeting you myself."

"Well, thank you. That's kind of you to say."

Pyrrha didn't bother to say that all she'd done had just been the result of hard work and luck; that there really was nothing inherently special about her. She knew from experience that it would have just been brushed off and met by more praise and flattery.

Besides, she recognized the look on the heiress's face. There was an ulterior motive here, and she had a good idea what that was. It didn't really bother her that much. What was niggling in the back of her mind was why Jaune was hiding from her and how to bring it up delicately.

"I'm not just saying that," Weiss continued. "You've been a pretty big inspiration to me, and many others here, I'm sure. In fact ... have you given any thought to whose team you'd like to be on? I'm sure everyone must be eager to unite with such a strong, well-known individual such as yourself!"

"Hmm ... I'm not quite sure. I was planning on letting the chips fall where they may," she demurred, expecting the the question that she knew would be next. And it was an honest answer, in addition to being polite.

Weiss was visibly struggling not to beam. "Well, I was thinking maybe we could be on a team together."

"Well, that sounds grand!"

This time she was being more polite than honest. Besides, Pyrrha suspected that they wouldn't be the ones picking teammates anyway. That had been how Sanctum operated, at any rate. She just wanted to keep the girl happy as she tried to figure out a way to ask her own question without it coming off as completely incongruous. Or exposing the fact that Jaune was currently hiding in the locker. Whatever were his reasons for hiding, she didn't want to unnecessarily aggravate things when she still had no real clue what was going on.

Weiss didn't give her time to think on a way to do it, however.

"Great!" the white-haired girl chirped. Satisfied that she'd gotten what she came for, she took her leave by saying, "Well, I've taken enough of your time. If you'll excuse me, I'll be off now. It was a pleasure meeting you."

"Likewise," she responded, resigned to the fact that there was no way she could just naturally slip in the question. She'd just have to ask Jaune. It'd be more reasonable to ask him anyway since he'd literally jumped out of their conversation.

"See you on the field then."

"One can hope."

Pyrrha watched her walk out the locker room, then went to Jaune's locker and gave it a knock.

"You can come out now."

Jaune opened the locker door slowly and peeked through the crack. Seeing the the Schnee girl gone, he opened the door wider and stepped out, sighing in relief. Then he saw how she was looking at him.

"Eheh, I probably owe you an explanation, don't I?"

She raised an eyebrow.

* * *

Jaune fought the urge to cuss. That was two girls that had seen him beat a retreat already. And it had started out so well too.

Pyrrha Nikos, Mistral tournament star and pride of Sanctum, had actually approached him first, to flirt of all things! He recognized her immediately from her picture on the Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes box. She was the best possible ally to make, and she'd literally walked right up to him. He'd feigned not knowing her, since being too eager to ally with her because of who she was might mar what positive impression she had of him. Whatever they were, they'd been enough to make him somehow flirt-worthy to one of the best of their year, and probably the whole student body.

Sure, he knew she'd lose any romantic intentions on him soon enough, once she found out what a goofball he "really" was. The trick would be to remain in her good graces and keep being considered a friend. Enough to be consistently helped out when in trouble, at least. He could almost imagine the incredulity and outrage from his male peers if they knew that he was willfully trying to get into the dreaded "friendzone."

Of course, that was if his undignified retreat earlier hadn't ruined the positive regard already. He'd already had two unfortunate encounters with the Schnee heiress and had wanted to avoid a third so soon if there was ever going to be the chance to avoid her everlasting enmity. He'd reacted on instinct, and he hated himself for it. His self-control was supposed to be much, much better.

Luckily—as much as that word could ever apply to him—Ruby and Yang had arrived shortly after he began explaining, and they'd been quick to support him after they'd introduced themselves to Pyrrha. At least his foresight in approaching them was continuing to pay off, barring the regrettable shield incident. Pyrrha seemed to take their combined explanation well enough, and she'd willingly kept company with them all the way to the venue of the initiation. Good enough.

Still, he hated how tumultuous his luck had been in such a short time. He really needed to step up his game. Especially now when he saw exactly where Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch were waiting for them: in front of a cliff, and there were a row of platforms he knew were spring-loaded, thanks to the info he'd read up on yesterday. He'd always been convinced that Hunter training was just clever way adults could get away with murdering teenagers, and this was simply more proof.

At least he wouldn't be airsick when they launched him into the air. Being catapulted was fundamentally different from being on a lengthy trip on some bobbing and swaying platform. He knew firsthand, in fact; his family training had involved a launching or twelve. The forces acting on the body were quite different. As was the sheer terror. Gut-wrenching and bladder-emptying, yes, but he'd never vomited in those situations.

He glumly stepped up onto a platform as the professors watched them quietly. Professor Goodwitch looked as stern and humorless as ever, while the green-clothed Professor Ozpin was sipping contentedly on a steaming cup of coffee. The other professor was holding on to a Scroll of her own, which meant the test was going to be monitored. He grimaced since that meant he couldn't just bug out at the first sign of trouble without his actions being recorded and noted.

Jaune resented the hot blonde and the silver-haired bastard already. He turned away so that they wouldn't see that resentment on his face and exchanged brief glances and nervous smiles with Ruby, Yang, and Pyrrha.

When all the students had each settled on a platform, Professor Ozpin stepped up and said, "For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest."

_Because the ridiculously high scores needed to get accepted into the academy aren't enough, apparently,_ Jaune quipped in his head.

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of 'teams,'" Professor Goodwitch added. "Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion. Each of you will be given teammates ... today."

"What? Ohhh ..." he heard Ruby say under her breath.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon. So it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well." The headmaster took another sip from his cup.

Ruby groaned.

Jaune looked around, knowing who his choices would be if he had any. Pyrrha first, obviously, because of her proven skills. Her interest in him also meant an added incentive to keep him nice and well. Might be troublesome later if he couldn't dissuade her infatuation, but that was hardly relevant today.

Ruby next because there had to be something to a girl accepted two years early by the headmaster himself, especially with the skill she would have needed to master for her inherently difficult weapon. She also felt like she owed him and seemed iclined to jump into the aid of friends regardless, which was an excellent attitude to take.

Yang was his third choice because he didn't know much about her abilities, and her weapons and attitude screamed "close-range fighter." He preferred having longer-ranged teammates so he could have the excuse to "watch their back" since his weapons were useless range-wise. They'd do some damage to Grimm before they got close enough for him to matter, making his job marginally easier and safer.

Blake was his last choice because, well, other than her helping him out twice yesterday he knew next to nothing about her. He hadn't managed to forge close initial ties with her either. He looked for her among the other students and thought he saw her in the distance.

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years," Ozpin's voice broke through his planning.

"Whaaaat?!" Ruby cried out.

Jaune was inclined to agree. _Of course_ there was an added twist. He should have seen it coming. Trying to kill them all wasn't enough, they had to play character and mind games too. Next they were going to say that they'd found a way to crossbreed Deathstalkers and Nevermores, just so they'd be air assaulted by a veritable squadron of ginormous dive-bombing scorpions.

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path ... or you will die."

He had to give it to the man, he was honest. He wished he could be so he could say a few choice words of his own. Instead, he kept quiet and tried to shift to a launch-ready stance, which was easier said than done because he was also trying his hardest not shake himself to pieces.

"You will be monitored and graded through the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. You will guard that item, as well as your standing, and you will be graded appropriately. Are there any questions?"

_Yes, do you all secretly enjoy this and keep the records for you to laugh at during Faculty Movie Night?_ he thought as he tried not to glare at the professor, who nonchalantly took another sip of his coffee.

When no one spoke up, Ozpin said, "Good! Now, take your positions."

Jaune drew his weapons and held them at the ready. He breathed in and out as steadily as he could, trying to calm himself as much as possible. Usually, that meant amping from 100% terrified down to 95%; statistically significant as far as he was concerned. The statisticians would be proud. He fervently hoped that he could keep from becoming a statistic himself.

As the students began launching one by one, he kept an eye on his prospective partners, hoping he could figure out where they might land from their general trajectories. The first of the four was Blake, down the line. He noted her flight path and tried to remember the general area where he'd lost sight of her. Some more unfamiliar students launched before he saw another familiar face, Weiss. He committed the area he's lost sight of her to memory too, so he knew where to stay away.

He fought the increasing temptation to step off the platform as more and more students launched before they finally came to Pyrrha, Yang, and Ruby. The first had been as graceful as expected, the second had put on some aviator sunglasses and whooped enthusiastically as she took to the air, and the last gave him a reassuring smile just before she launched.

It actually did help. By the tiniest bit.

His turn now. His breathing was shallow. His grip on Crocea Mors tightened …

… just before the ground fell away.


	4. Chapter 3 - Running Start, Screeching

**Author's note**: So, this chapter was supposed to be finished by last Friday, but the longer I got into it the more something about the whole thing felt off to me. Maybe it was because it was built off the cut parts from the previous chapter, but something about it didn't flow right. It just seemed ... ad hoc somehow.

So I did that one thing many fanfic writers dread and shoved the old version of the chapter into cold storage and rewrote it from the top. In the end, even though I originally planned to finish the whole forest chapter in one go, I decided to split this in two. I don't want it to be rushed, and this is already well over 11K words.

As for Macman6453's question on whether I'm German; sorry, I'm not. If I were, I probably wouldn't have misspelled "Kartofel." ;P

* * *

**Chapter 3 - Running Start, Screeching Halt**

_Sticks and stones can break my bones, a__nd Grimm will surely hurt me._

_—Vytalian nursery rhyme warning of the dangers of wooded areas_

* * *

The wind whistled past her ears as she flew through the air high over the lush greenery of the Emerald Forest. She could hear the flapping of her hood and cloak despite the sound of the wind, and it almost seemed like rapid wing beats to her. Even in the midst of her concentration, an image of herself with wings came to mind, and she almost smiled at the fairy tale-like feel of it. Ruby had always liked fairy tales.

That unexpected bit of wistfulness was dashed when a big, black feathery mass appeared out nowhere, and she just managed to cry a horrified "Birdie, no!" as she smacked into it headfirst. She'd instinctively drawn on a bit of her Aura, so the impact hadn't really hurt her. From the sound of that squawk at impact, however, the same couldn't be said for the bird.

As she spat out a feather from her mouth, she at least hoped that it was a Nevermore so plowing into it and bringing it down would actually be a good thing. It had seemed a bit on the beefy side when she hit it, so that sounded about right.

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth set into a determined line. She still shouldn't have allowed herself to lose concentration in the first place. As the treetops got closer and closer, she fired off a few rounds in quick succession from Crescent Rose, using the recoil to slow her approach.

When a suitably thick-looking branch came into view, she quickly transformed the weapon into its scythe mode. The transformation flipped her orientation, allowing her to snag the branch within the crook of the blade, hooking it at just the right angle to prevent the blade from cleaving entirely through the wood. She allowed herself a quick spin to kill more of her remaining momentum before unhooking the scythe.

Ruby landed in a crouch. With a quick check around her to get her bearings and make sure nothing was attacking, she sprung into a standing position and darted quickly through the forest.

Her mind raced even as she navigated through the forest floor, repeating a mantra through her head, _Gotta find Yang! Gotta find Yang! Gotta find Yang …_

"Yang! Yaaaang!" she yelled desperately.

She really hoped she bumped into her sister, or at very least someone she knew. Her first day might not have been as bad as she'd thought it'd be, but that didn't mean the prospect of bumping into a complete stranger and fumbling her way through introductions and awkward conversations was any less uncomfortable. And that was without having to learn how to work together and watch each other's backs immediately.

Worse was the thought of possibly working with someone who hated her. She remembered the two arguments she'd gotten into yesterday with Weiss and scowled. Really, what was that girl's problem?

Sure, Jaune kinda-sorta blew up her luggage, which kinda-sorta only happened because she'd touched off his shield, but it's not like they'd both meant to do it! Jaune had even had the presence of mind to cover her and protect her from the blast himself. She could try to be a little more understanding.

Well, yes, she had told her servants to help them out, so she wasn't that bad, she guessed. But expecting them to stay away from her and getting mad when they couldn't by accident? That was just too much! They were in the same year and would be sharing most of the same classes. It would be impossible to stay completely away from her. It was like Weiss needed an excuse to keep holding a grudge.

Ruby's face softened. Getting worked up about things that happened yesterday would just distract her again, and make her almost as bad since _she'd_ be holding a grudge herself. Besides, thinking about yesterday reminded her that there were other people who probably needed a friendly, familiar face much more than she did right now.

After all, Jaune's first day had been much worse than she'd feared hers would be. And no matter how much he said the shield thing wasn't really her fault, she still felt that she owed him somehow. Plus, well, he was a really nice guy, but with his luck she shuddered to think how he'd do in a fight. She chewed on her lower lip. How could she call herself his friend if she didn't look out for him even as she expected others to look out for her?

"Dork Solidarity," she whispered, smiling slightly.

She nodded to herself, grip tightening on Crescent Rose, and her pace quickened.

* * *

The boy fell forward, body leaning in at a steep angle and arms held back straight to reduce drag. In his arms were held StormFlower, a pair of jade-colored automatic pistols with long, wicked-looking blades curving down to a point from beneath each barrel. So focused was his attention that his only discernable movements were from his clothing and the long, black ponytail rustling from the passing wind.

Nothing interrupted his concentration; Lie Ren had spent too many years with probably the most distracting (and distracted) person on Vytal to not learn how to ignore distractions. In less pressing circumstances, he would've both sighed wearily and smiled wistfully at that thought.

As it was, his face showed no expression as he suddenly extended his arms out to his sides, allowing the drag to pull his body back as he pushed his feet forward. He flipped around the weapon on his left just in time to catch the trunk of the nearest tree with his blade. He corkscrewed down its length as the blade traced his path through the wood.

He settled lightly on his feet and let his weapons collapse and withdraw into his sleeves. Dusting off his dark-green tailcoat, he calmly walked away from the tree.

The loud report of a weapon above him caught his attention, and he looked up just in time to see a blond-haired girl zip past a gap in the forest canopy, whooping excitedly. Magenta eyes, the same shade as the errant stripe of color on his bangs, blinked and he remained staring at the gap for a moment even after the blonde had passed. He'd almost thought that was Nora.

This time, he allowed himself a small smile.

He'd better get a move on and keep his ears peeled. He had "sloth" sounds to listen for. The private joke widened the smile ever so slightly before he settled back to into expressionless alertness.

Ren checked the slant of the sunlight through the gaps in the forest roof and quickly ascertained where north was. He moved forward calmly, to all appearances looking like he was taking a relaxing stroll. However, his senses were heightened, augmented by his own Aura.

Like all children in Remnant quickly grew up to know, as beautiful as the woods were, there was always something very real and very deadly lurking close by. You paid attention, or you would never pay attention to anything ever again.

He felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and he narrowed his eyes as he looked around. He dropped into a fighting stance.

_Speak of the devil …_

There was a very distinctive hiss.

* * *

Weiss stepped off the last of the series of snowflake-like runes she'd used as stepping stones for her landing in a smooth, deceptively dainty-looking motion. She stood on the grassy ground, poised and confident as she swept her head around in assessment, a consciously dignified expression on her face. Even with seemingly no one around, she still carried herself as was right for a scion of the Schnee.

She should—and would—show nothing less than her best in everything. Always. After all, in the Schnee family perfection was not expected, because that went without saying.

Her left hand twitched up, unconsciously moving toward the scar running over the orbit of her left eye. She pushed it back down, shame and anger burning in her at such an indulgence. A Schnee dealt decisively with the present to shape the future, learning from the past. They did not wallow in it. Wallowing was beneath their dignity.

She straightened whatever creases had formed in her white-and-faded-blue dress and fixed the collar of the long-sleeved open vest she wore over her shoulders, allowing the red inner lining of the collar to frame her face. Her finely crafted rapier, Myrtenaster, she held at the ready, giving the revolving Dust chamber within the guard a reassuring spin.

Weiss set her face resolutely and focused on the path ahead.

* * *

With the crunching of splintered wood and the clanging of metal, Pyrrha tore into several branches with Akouo held before her. When the battering of the trees had slowed her down to a satisfactory level, she shifted in the air and rolled onto the next branch. Milo shifted from sword to rifle mode as she stood up, and she quickly brought it up and peered through its scope. After a scan, she quickly found the one she hoped to partner with.

She frowned at the sight of Jaune rolling through the air as he struggled with his own shield and sword. He'd had a bad launch, it seemed, and had let the drag of his weapons throw his flight into chaos. He looked to be slowly gaining control, but at the rate he was dropping there wouldn't be enough time. She had to help, fast.

Pyrrha considered using Milo's javelin form to pin Jaune safely to a tree, but immediately discarded the idea given how erratic his tumble was. It was too risky to try without possibly injuring Jaune himself, if Milo didn't just get deflected off the shield and sword he was waving around.

She grimaced and leaped off the branch, bounding quickly in Jaune's direction. Her only chance was to move fast enough to provide whatever help she could as soon as possible. She didn't like idea, but there was really nothing else she could do that didn't risk skewering her latest crush or making his tumble worse. He was regaining some measure of control, so she at least hoped that maybe he landed well enough that whatever injuries he sustained would be relatively minor.

And that he didn't land too close to any Grimm.

The redhead fought down the rising panic, knowing how deadly that emotion could be in dangerous situations. With no false modesty or preening arrogance, Pyrrha knew she was good at what she did, and what she did, as well as everything she had ever learned, was all to protect people. Be they human or Faunus, warrior or otherwise, friends or strangers.

And like _hell_ would she fail when it counted.

* * *

Jaune fought the urge to express every bit of the terror he was feeling, forcing himself to focus on the more important problem of gaining and maintaining control. It helped that he'd done this before—which was a twisted way of looking at things if he really thought about it. "Blessedly," he was too busy trying to stay alive to dwell on the subject.

Twisting this way and that, he used his shield and sword as a makeshift drag chute and rudder. He sent himself into a controlled tumble, hoping to make his landing look just barely successful. He had to play some ineptness up for the cameras. Even as he did so, he kept an eye on the verdant scenery blurring past beneath him, steering himself away from obstacles and into openings between the rapidly approaching line of trees by moving Crocea Mors just enough, yet still seem like his overall movements were little more than random careening.

Finally, he touched down, letting his feet make contact with the forest floor first and pushing off it to continue into a roll even as his hands positioned Crocea Mors safely. He'd learned from experience that rolling was one of the safer ways to land since it redirected the force of the impact away from his body while the wheeling motion slowed him down nicely. It also had the bonus of allowing him to push off and stand up relatively quickly, whether he stopped facedown or on his back.

And while his family might've grumbled a bit about such landings making potential dynamic entrances somewhat less dashing and impressive, they'd conceded that it was good enough. After all, as long as an entrance wasn't a complete disaster it could always be embellished later. They'd preferred he save the life-threatening glory hounding for the thick of the action. Because apparently heroics was directly proportional to potential self-lethality.

There was probably an equation on it somewhere, next to some severely drunk, jaded mathematician.

Jaune finally rolled to a stop in a clearing, settling to a stop on his behind. All in all, not a bad—

He froze, managing to stifle the scream in his throat. Not that it helped. One by one the pair of Ursae Minor in front of him looked up from the bloody mess of what might've been an animal carcass (he hoped) and turned to glare at him with their glowing red eyes. Blood and drool dripped from their jaws.

"Typical." He sighed.

As one, the two Ursae roared and lunged at him.

* * *

"Woohoo!"

Sunlight glinted off both Yang's aviator frames and teeth as she yelled with childlike glee. With another pair of blasts from Ember Celica, she launched herself into a roll above the treetops. She twirled joyously and laughed out loud, enjoying the mad rush of the scenery before her and the feel of the wind blowing through her voluminous mass of wavy blond hair.

"Yeah!" she barked as she pushed off the top of a tree with her hands, accentuating it with another simultaneous blast from her gauntlets. "Alley-oop!"

This was just like flying! No, even better than that. She was falling, with style!

Her mouth widened even more as she reached the apex of her latest arc, and she took in the _amazing_ sight of the bright blue sky swapping out in quick succession with that of the green mat of the forest. Time seemed to slow, and it was as if she could see every minute detail. Every swirl of the white clouds, every vein of each leaf swept off the trees by the wind of her passage.

Sure, she had been bouncing in the treetops this way and that a little longer than she really needed to. She couldn't help it; it was just too fun. She even felt she could go all the way to the temple like this. Not that she would, though. Great as the feeling was, she didn't want to miss out on any of the Grimm-beating action either. Besides, this was a test to get into a Hunting academy. She couldn't _not_ hunt. That just felt like a bad case of missing the point and a worse case of boring.

One more twirl, then she'd get to business.

Before she could launch into it, though, she caught sight of a gap in the tree cover. Through it she could see two Ursae charging at somebody who was scrambling off his ass like the ground was a hotplate. A very familiar somebody.

Her sunglasses almost fell away from her lavender eyes as she abruptly shifted in midair, arresting her leap while she tried to orient to herself toward the proper direction. She managed to make contact with one of the tree trunks with her boots, and she pushed off it toward another, then off another still. Zigzagging so, she made her way toward clearing in no time to spare.

Yang arrived just in time to see Jaune intercept an Ursa's right paw swipe with his heater shield. She grinned approvingly as the boy levered the attacking arm away with the shield and exposed the Ursa's neck to him, taking advantage of the fact that Ursae twisted their heads away from the striking forearm so as not to impede the movement of their shoulders with their own heads. In a single stroke he swept his sword down at the Grimm's now vulnerable neck and lopped off its head cleanly.

The girl nodded in satisfaction. Awkward and airsickness-susceptible as he was, Jaune clearly had fangs. Then again, should she really be so surprised? Her little sis could be almost as embarrassing, to herself and others, but she knew her way around a scythe like no one else except their Uncle Qrow.

She spotted the second Ursa taking advantage of Jaune's preoccupation with the other to circle around and take him from the flank. Launching herself off the tree, she fired a flurry of shots at the beast, causing it to stagger back. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a startled Jaune jerk up and turn her way.

Yang shot him a cheeky smile while her heavy combat boots slammed into the Grimm's skull with as much force and weight behind them as she could bring to bear. She dropped into a crouch as she drove the Ursa's head into the ground with an audible _crunch_, finishing it off with two shot-reinforced jabs right into its neck.

She looked right into Jaune's face and whipped off her sunglasses dramatically. "Nailed it."

He gaped at her for a moment before he finally found his voice, "T-thanks."

"Meh, you could've taken him." She shrugged, gesturing at his handiwork. Then, after a quick look of consideration on her face, she added, "But, hey, if it makes you feel any better, you can still owe me."

Instead of joking back, Jaune jerked as if she'd struck him. He looked at the decapitated Ursa, then back her with an expression on his face that reminded her of the times Ruby had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

She looked at him strangely, wondering at the reaction. Most guys would have used that as an opportunity to start preening or acting with self-congratulatory false humility, usually in an attempt to impress her.

"T-that wasn't supposed to happen!" he blurted out, waving his arms in front of him. "N-not the beheading, glad that happened … I mean, the Ursa wasn't … I'm not really ... not that good … I, uh, just got lucky. Yeah. Really lucky."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Oooookay?"

"What I'm trying to say is," he continued, more calmly now. "I, erm, got so focused on that one that the other Ursa would've gotten me. So, really, thanks. I do owe you."

She blinked, still not quite sure how to take the boy's atypical reactions. Then she recalled the clumsy way he'd tried to introduce himself to her and Ruby yesterday, all in an attempt to apologize for his puke ending up on her shoes because he'd vomited in their vicinity.

She shook her head. Man, the guy really was too high-strung. The exploding and the crabby rich girl yelling at him probably hadn't helped too.

"Geez, Jaune-Jaune, give yourself a little credit." She clapped him affectionately on his armored back, which sent him teetering. He managed remain to standing. "And try to relax, will you? This is just a little warm-up!"

Yang swept a hand at the Grimm corpses. In her experience, nothing fired people up like a bit of joking and bravado.

"Eh heh, yeah. Warm-up," Jaune repeated slowly. "Still, you know, thanks."

She rolled her eyes a bit, realizing that he was gonna stay on this thanking business until she actually acknowledged it. She sighed, smiled ruefully, then suddenly grinned and put her arm around his shoulders.

"Anytime!" She swept the index finger of her free hand between them. "Besides, forget Dork Solidarity. It's us blondies who have to stick together. After all, we're the …"

"Blonderhood?" he supplied, smiling sardonically.

The smile dropped from her face at the horrible pun, and she pushed him away theatrically. "You _monster_."

* * *

Ren flipped out of the way just as the enormous King Taijitu struck, rolling back hand over feet several times to get clear. He felt the earth shudder as the black serpent drove its snout into the ground. Clumps of dirt flew into the air even as the snake tore after him.

He landed on his feet and immediately tried to leap away. He'd been too slow, and the Grimm's snout caught him in mid-jump. Luckily, the earlier impact with the ground had made it close its mouth, so it hadn't managed to take the opportunity to sink its colossal fangs into him. Ren rode the force of the impact, back-flipped through the air, and landed on his feet, skidding to a halt.

The boy crouched as the King Taijitu coiled its dark body around him in an attempt to trap him with its bulk. StormFlower shot out of his sleeves, and he jumped straight up, just managing to squeeze out of the ever tightening coil. He fired off several bursts as he spun through the air.

The rounds glanced uselessly off its thick scales, and its head quickly snapped forward. Ren was ready this time, however, and delivered a vicious kick into the creature's snout that sent its head down into the forest floor, and it let out an outraged roaring hiss. Wasting no time, he moved to the creature's side, slashing at its head with StormFlower's blades.

But the snake was already moving, and he accomplished little more than a glancing blow. It reared back and then struck again, which Ren avoided by jumping right into the sky, almost straight up. Yet another shower of massive dirt clumps exploded into the air behind him.

A bit dazed at the impact, the snake didn't immediately bring its head back up. Seizing the opportunity, Ren landed right on its head, sinking his blades into it as deeply as possible. The King Taijitu stopped moving. Ren took the opportunity to catch his breath, closing his eyes momentarily.

He sensed movement behind him, and his eyes snapped open. They narrowed as he spun around, just in time to see the white half of the King Taijitu moving toward him. He leaped to the side, grimacing at how close it had come to snapping him in its mouth.

The two halves coiled together briefly, hissing at him, before resuming their attack jointly. As the pair got closer, he ran at the nearest one, the black half, and hopped onto its head, sliding over its body and firing long but ineffectual bursts with his guns at the other. It lunged toward him, managing to connect and knocking him off its other half.

Ren, wind knocked out of him, lost his grip on StormFlower as he found himself sprawled onto the ground. He looked up just in time to see the black half's massive fangs aimed right at him.

"No!" he roared as put his arms up, channeling Aura into the palms of his hands.

He felt a powerful ripple go through his body as the fangs connected mightily with the Aura, but it held. The tips of the fangs had stopped mere centimeters from his hands, held in place by a pulsating pinkish glow. Viciously, he grabbed hold of the fangs and, with a single powerful yank, ripped them out of the jaws of the black King Taijitu.

It reared back, screaming in animalistic rage, before it lunged at him again, vengeance on its mind. Ren sidestepped its head and stabbed a fang into its right eye. Focusing a burst of Aura into the palm of his other hand, he drove it into the back of the ripped-out fang. The concentrated Aura poured into the tooth, tearing it apart explosively as it pushed deep into the skull of the serpent. Its head seemed to inflate as the energy was suddenly released, and it exploded into surprisingly almost bloodless but still messy reptilian chunks.

Ren turned to face the white one as the pieces rained around him. It hissed and pulled back a bit, hesitating at the fate of its other half. He was about to charge at it when, seemingly out of nowhere, a black ribbon shot out and passed below the snake's head. On its end was a black pistol with a blade, albeit of a different design to StormFlower. It fired, propelling it upward and making it loop the ribbon around the King Taijitu's head.

As Ren watched, it made two revolutions before the blade of the gun sank into the great viper's left eye. The beast writhed in pain, tugging fiercely at the ribbon. With a jerk, it snapped the ribbon toward itself, and its wielder suddenly came into view. It was girl with long, black hair topped by a bow. She was dressed in a mostly black-and-white form-fitting outfit.

She allowed herself to be pulled toward the snake and landed on the back of its neck. It bucked and thrashed wildly, trying to both shake her off and wrench the offending blade from its eye. The girl steadied herself as she rode the monster, keeping a steady grip on the ribbon with one arm. With the other she held what looked like a massive rectangular cleaving blade.

With a single slash into the neck, the blade cut into the beast's flesh and severed its spinal column. It toppled, head held on only by the lower half of its neck. From the top of the now-dead Grimm, the girl retrieved her gun-ribbon weapon. He saw it change configuration before she slipped it into the long cleaver, which Ren realized also doubled as a sheath. She looked back at him with golden eyes and gave him a small, mildly smug smirk.

He cocked his head slightly before calling out, "Thanks."

"No problem," she said flatly as she calmly stepped off the fresh corpse and approached him.

Ren looked at her quietly for a while, thinking of what to say. He wasn't usually good with the introductions. Usually, his far more gregarious best friend Nora did most of the talking—and the moving, for that matter.

At the thought of her, he winced slightly. She had been dead set on them becoming partners. Truth be told, he hadn't really expected otherwise either. Since the girl had latched onto him when they were children, they had always been together ("but not together-together," he could almost hear her voice add) in, well, almost everything. Both of them had sort of taken it for granted; a law of the universe so fundamental that you hardly thought about it, like gravity.

The prospect of having a partner who was not an orange-haired avatar of incessant energy actually caused him a lot more concern than that King Taijitu ever did. And who knew how Nora would react?

The black-haired girl was looking at him expectantly, though. It wouldn't do to be impolite. A bit uncertainly, he introduced himself, "Ren."

"Blake," she replied with a single curt nod.

"So …" he began. "Heard any sloths on the way here?"

He winced again, realizing exactly how that sounded the moment the last word left his mouth. Sometimes Nora rubbed off on him, in ways he didn't expect. The girl stared blankly at him.

"… Never mind."

* * *

So far, she hadn't run into anybody. Given that some idiot had run into her no less than twice yesterday—the first time managing to blow up her extra Dust and most of her luggage—Weiss actually found it a little refreshing. Still, she had been making her way through the forest for a while, and having run into no one so far was starting to get her worried.

Not that she needed anyone's help to navigate this forest, Grimm and all. After all, she had been given the finest training money could buy and family knowhow could reinforce, not to mention that she was armed with Myrtenaster, a carefully crafted complement to her skill (and she was lucky to have had enough Dust on her to last for today, until replacements could be sent). Getting a partner was still part of the test, though, and there was no underestimating the value of a proper ally.

_Proper_ being the operative word. Like Pyrrha Nikos for example. The strongest girl in class with her, easily the smartest girl in class? Together they would be unstoppable! She could just see it now. They'd be popular, celebrities even (moreso than their individual reputations as "famed athlete" and "Schnee heiress" would lend them individually). They'd get perfect grades in both practical and academic subjects. The whole thing would've been perfect, really, which was why she'd approached Pyrrha earlier. She'd been ecstatic when the famous student had been amenable to her offer.

Then the professors had dropped the bomb and exploded her plan in her face like that blond idiot had her luggage. Being partnered with the first person you ran across? Absurd! That didn't square at all with them saying that they needed to find someone they could work well with for the next four years. You didn't just drop two random people together and expect them to be good partners just like that, or ever.

What if she ended up with someone like that clumsy buffoon who seemed incapable of even watching where he was going? Her face twisted in distaste. Such a partnership could only be a liability, never mind actually being tied to and dragged down by the fool for four years. How did he even get to Beacon with such incompetence anyway? He couldn't even fight his own battles, leaving that to his equally annoying girlfriend (who seemed far too young to even be here in the first place) and that loud blonde who'd joined the argument last night.

The very idea that she might actually end up with any of them due to random chance left a bad taste in her mouth. Even if she was careful about whom she ran into, yesterday had shown her that there was no stopping others from blundering into her. She had better—

Crackling and rustling noises from behind interrupted her thoughts, and she turned around, Myrtenaster still at her side but ready to come up at a moment's notice.

"Hello?" she ventured. "Is anyone there?"

Her only reply was a pair of glowing red eyes glaring at her. Simultaneously, more noises erupted all around her, followed by more malevolent crimson eyes looking out hungrily. A chorus of growling joined the rustling noises. She turned around again, just in time to spot a larger-than-usual, more jagged-looking Beowolf emerging from a bush and approaching her.

It gave out a roar, and the other Beowolves seemed to emerge from the bushes at the apparent command. Clearly, that first Grimm was this pack's alpha. Weiss brought her rapier up.

Just in time to deflect a powerful swipe. She jumped back, moving into the middle of the encircling group of canine Grimm. She calmed herself as she drew on the familiar tenets of her training.

_Head up, shoulders back,_ she recited mentally as her body followed the motions. _Right foot forward—not that forward!_

The foot drew back a little at her own mental chastisement. Her icy blue eyes narrowed, focusing on the larger alpha. She knew the other Beowolves would be taking their cues from it.

_Slow your breathing, wait for the right time to strike, and ..._

There was a reassuring sound of smooth mechanical clicking as Myrtensaster's chamber revolved, bringing the incendiary Dust to the primary position. She saw the alpha begin to move.

_Now!_

Weiss dashed forward, sword primed and ready. She brought the tip into line as she closed the distance.

Then the ground in front of the alpha exploded.

Startled, Weiss stopped abruptly, almost stumbling in the process. Myrtensater swung widely and discharged off to the side, sending out a line of flame that bore down on a tree and turned it into charcoal almost instantaneously. The intense heat began to ignite the surrounding plant life.

Outraged, the young heiress turned to give whoever attacked out of turn a piece of her mind. An orange-haired, white-and-pink blur flew past her, grenade launcher transforming into a warhammer in her hands. The girl quickly moved closer to the alpha, who was still reeling from the blast. Instead of hitting it with her weapon, the girl flanked it and, to Weiss's astonishment, jumped on its back, just behind its spikes. She grabbed hold of one of the bony protrusions with her left hand as she held the hammer up with her right.

"Puppy rides!" the girl squealed, grinning wildly.

Weiss watched, mouth agape, as the alpha tried to shake the girl loose, screaming in fury. Its struggles just seemed to make the girl happier, and she giggled with all the abandon of an unsupervised child in a candy store. Other Beowolves moved in to help it, but many were met with hammer blows accentuated by concussive blasts. Others ended up accidentally striking their own alpha as it twisted and turned, which got them struck in return. More hammer blows finished them off.

"Wha-What?!" Weiss blurted, still not believing her eyes as the girl continued on her bareback Beowolf rampage, happily oblivious to her presence.

The approach of other Beowolves snapped Weiss out of it; apparently they thought her safer to attack than that mad thing latching onto their boss. The first to realize how wrong it was got skewered through the neck for its trouble.

She turned, ready to face its fellow packmates. However, the spreading flames quickly reached the foliage around the Grimm at that point, and the remnants of the pack began beating a hasty retreat.

Weiss saw the abandoned alpha, unwanted rider still on its back, try to follow. It swayed wildly, almost seeming drunk, and weakened visibly with every step. Then, unceremoniously, it fell, succumbing to exhaustion and the injuries inflicted upon it by its packmates' errant attempts to help.

The orange-haired girl stood up, peered at the dying Grimm for a moment, then disappointedly said, "Aww, it's broken."

Eyebrow twitching at the ludicrous nature of it all, Weiss bore down on the girl. "You! Do you have any idea what your … your … _recklessness_ just caused?!"

She gestured furiously at the growing inferno with Myrtenaster.

"Hm?" The girl turned to look at her blankly with inquisitive turquoise eyes, as if she had just noticed her.

Weiss wanted to scream right at her face. She was about to, in fact, when the girl looked over her shoulder and, wordlessly, ran off. Weiss felt her eyes threatening to pop from her sockets at being so brazenly ignored.

"Hey, come back here! I'm not done with you!"

At that point, she became aware of the rising heat behind her and turned to see that the fire was still spreading. The girl had the right idea, it seemed, although now Weiss was also annoyed that she had just run off like that without having the good grace to warn her. She sprinted after the receding figure of the girl, hoping to catch up with her.

As utterly reckless and disrespectful as the girl had been, she was the first person Weiss had run into. The white-haired girl's mood worsened at the thought of being stuck with that one for the next four years, but at least the display in the forest had showed that she could at least be useful in a fight. Besides, she still hadn't given her a proper piece of her mind yet.

Weiss called out to her again, but the girl seemed to be resolutely ignoring her. She was getting angrier and angrier now. Her scar had turned into an even darker shade of red, and her face was rapidly approaching shades of puce previously unknown to humankind.

The girl stopped abruptly, and for a second Weiss thought that she'd finally gotten through. She should have known better. The girl leapt onto the nearest tree and swiftly climbed into its branches, disappearing into the leaves. Weiss glared up at her.

Was … was she trying to actually hide from her? Like _that_?

"Alright, this has gone on long enough!" she shouted up at her. "I demand that you come down here this instant and answer me!

The girl didn't come down, but she did answer, "Brr-haa! Brrr-haaa!"

"E-excuse me?"

Was the girl crazy? Maybe she should just leave her be and try her luck with another potential partner. God help her, Weiss was almost considering that that blond moron or his girlfriend would be acceptable. Almost.

Another "Brrr-haaa!" sounded from the trees.

No … Weiss slowly realized. The girl was _mocking_ her. Messing with her attacks, then ignoring her, and now this travesty? What else could it be? The puce on her face began to ripple. She had never been so insulted in her entire life. Just who did this girl think she was? Did she have any idea who she was talking to—

Something sprang out at her, and Weiss recoiled. "Daahh!"

It was the girl, who had finally decided to actually face her … while hanging upside down from a branch.

"You're not a sloth," she said without preamble, sounding even more disappointed than she had at "breaking" the Beowolf.

"S-sloth …?" Weiss shook her head. "No! You are not going to change the subject. Do you have anything to say for yourself at all?"

"Oh!" the girl beamed happily. "Hi! I'm Nora!"

"W-Weiss," she answered automatically, caught off guard by the unexpected reply. Then her eyes widened, and she frowned again. "Wait, no! About that!"

She pointed again at the glow of the still raging forest fire.

"Hm …" Nora peered at the glow for a moment. "We should probably get going."

Before Weiss could say anything, Nora let go of the branch, rotated as she fell, and landed on her feet. She then grabbed hold of her hand and began marching off, humming merrily.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Weiss wrenched her hand free. "Where are you taking me?"

"We have to go find him," was the matter-of-fact answer.

"Find _who_?!"

"Ren." Nora looked at her like she was slow on the uptake before moving on.

Weiss gritted her teeth as she shook in rage, glaring daggers at the girl's back. She resisted the urge to tear out chunks of her hair which, if it wasn't already white, would have become so in short order.

"Who on earth is Ren?!"

* * *

Ruby kept moving north, Crescent Rose at the ready. So far she'd met no one.

She heard the distant rumbling of a series of explosions, and she paused a bit, looking at the direction they had come from. There seemed smoke rising in the distance. It looked like her other schoolmates had found some Grimm to hunt. Though Ruby wasn't sure setting off a forest fire was the best way to do that. Seemed a bit careless.

With a shrug, she continued onward. It looked far enough for it to be of no concern to her, especially since the faculty was keeping its eye on their test. They might not intervene on their behalf, but she doubted they'd let the school's personal forest burn down.

The noise of something rapidly moving through the shrubbery caught her attention, and she shifted into a fighting stance, readying her scythe. She waited expectantly, eagerly facing the direction the sounds were coming from. Running solo through the forest had been a bit boring, and she could do with a little Grimm-chopping to break the monotony.

Something burst into the clearing. A flash of bronze, gold, and dark red.

"Pyrrha?" Ruby drew away her weapon.

A pair of green eyes blinked at her. "Ruby?"

She'd met the girl after Jaune had introduced them earlier at the lockers. They'd also talked for a bit when they'd headed out to the cliff. She was really nice, friendly, and humble despite being famous. That was a nice change of pace after yesterday's "meetings" with the heiress of a famed family. Ruby liked her. And while she didn't know her that much, she was glad she'd been who she ran into. Four years as Pyrrha's partner didn't sound bad at all.

Ruby was about to smile and say so when she caught the worried look on the redhead's face. "Pyrrha, what's wrong?"

"It's Jaune," Pyrrha explained. "I saw him falling. It seemed like he was having trouble orienting himself. I'm worried about his landing."

A troubled look passed over Ruby's face. It seemed that her earlier concerns about Jaune were even worse than she'd thought. He really did have the crappiest of luck. The look passed to be replaced by one of determination.

"Let's go."

Wordlessly, the newfound pair moved on, Ruby following the older girl's lead. Unbidden, an image of Jaune being mauled by Beowolves came to her mind, and she shook it clear, a bit angry at herself. Usually, she liked her imagination just fine. It made the fairy tales she loved really come to life. But sometimes, it really, _really_ didn't know when to quit.

Ruby focused the path ahead and on Pyrrha's pathfinding. Jaune would be fine, and they would be there to help. Besides, she remembered the sheer amount of Aura that had poured out and healed him completely even after taking the brunt of that explosion yesterday. Hopefully, that meant that whatever injuries he'd sustained from the bad landing wouldn't be so bad, if not healed away.

Pyrrha stopped abruptly, and Ruby skidded to a halt beside her. She was about to ask what was up, when she saw that the taller girl was looking intently at the ground. Ruby looked down herself and saw that some of the grass had been pressed flat.

"Hey, is that—" she began.

The other girl nodded, and Ruby was relieved to see some of the concern ease from Pyrrha's face. "This way."

They followed the trail of crushed and torn grass. Apparently, Jaune had landed better than expected, despite falling badly enough that even a seasoned fighter like Pyrrha had been worried about it.

_Way to go, Crater Face!_ she thought affectionately, a small smile on her face.

She felt like mentally congratulating her first friend in Beacon again when they came to the area the trail eventually led to. In it were two dead Ursae. One of them had its head removed neatly by what had clearly been a bladed weapon.

"It seems my worries were premature." Pyrrha had a relieved smile on her face.

"I'll say." Ruby grinned at her proudly.

She should have known better than to think Jaune would have trouble in a fight just because he had a string of bad luck recently. He did get into Beacon, after all. And she was clumsy herself sometimes, and she knew she'd get really annoyed if people thought she'd be just as clumsy in a fight.

Ruby stepped on something hard. She looked down and saw an immediately recognizable orange-red cartridge. Excitedly, she picked it up and showed it to Pyrrha.

"Hey, I think Yang's with him!" she declared. "This is definitely from her weapon."

Pyrrha considered the cartridge for a moment before looking down and around. After a short while, she said, "I think I have their trail."

The younger teen dropped the spent shell and held up Crescent Rose eagerly. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

This day was starting to look better and better.

* * *

Unconsciously, Glynda Goodwitch adjusted her glasses as strode up to Professor Ozpin, her purple cape flapping in her wake. The headmaster was by the edge of the cliff, facing the edge as he peered quietly at his Scroll. Holding her own device, Glynda walked to his side.

"The last pair has been formed, Sir," she reported, tapping the translucent screen of her Scroll to bring up the latest in a queue of surveillance footage. "Pyrrha Nikos and Ruby Rose. Seasoned fame and early acceptance … I honestly don't know quite what to make of it."

She frowned. Admittedly, part of her assessment was because she still wasn't quite sure about Ozpin's decision to use his influence and friendship with the younger girl's uncle to get her into Beacon two years early. That was two years less time to mature and learn a bit more restraint, and even seventeen-year-olds (or full-fledged adults, for that matter) had more than enough trouble with that. That he'd done it after her foolhardy attempt to stop a group of criminals on her own she approved of even less. Glynda feared that was just rewarding the girl's tendency to rush into things without properly thinking them through.

Still, Ozpin _was_ the headmaster, and while she may disagree with his decisions, in the end he had the final say. And she would readily admit that, for all their disagreements, she actually did ultimately trust his judgment. So all she'd done was roll her eyes and quietly accept the inevitable.

A considering "Hmmm …" was all her colleague said in acknowledgment.

Knowing that she probably wasn't going to get any more than that, she continued, "Still, they're probably better off than Ms. Schnee." She brought up footage of an enraged Weiss stomping after Nora, who was blissfully unaware of her ill feeling. "Poor girl. I can't possibly imagine those two getting along."

All in all, the Schnee girl seemed to have had the rough of it since the beginning of her time in Beacon. Part of her could even understand and sympathize. Glynda herself worked with several faculty members who, competent though they might be, had accumulated various quirks over the years, many of them quite irritating after prolonged exposure. Her green eyes slid over to the man beside her. The headmaster was no exception to that either.

She truly wished the girl luck. Especially considering the incident with her luggage that one of the other teachers had reported yesterday. Accidentally blown up by one Jaune Arc, apparently.

She scowled slightly as the thought of the boy made her recall him actually having the gall to flirt with her last night—while wearing the silliest sleepwear she had yet seen, no less. The nerve of some children these days. Or perhaps it was simply a lack of sense. Not to mention that, so far, what she had seen of the boy skill-wise had been rather … erratic.

Despite being the last to launch, and thus having had the most time to prepare for it, he had tumbled through the air clumsily. One of the simplest things to do, something most students have very little difficulty with (many even used the opportunity to show off), and he'd botched it. But then he had executed a quite controlled landing, and while he had rolled straight into two Ursae, he had managed to get up and immediately slay one efficiently despite being caught by surprise. That fit with his family's recommendation, but made the lack of skill during launch make even less sense.

"Hmmm …" Ozpin said again, interrupting her reverie.

He cycled through the videos on his own device, scrutinizing them intently. Glynda resisted the urge to sigh in exasperation. She could tell that he was in one of his oblique moods again.

"I guess we'll find out soon enough." She turned and began walking away, leaving the headmaster to his thoughts "At their current pace, they should reach the temple within just a few minutes."

She was already a few steps away when she remembered something she had been curious about earlier.

"Speaking of which, what did you use as relics this year?" When silence met her question, she turned to look over her shoulder. "Professor Ozpin?"

He stayed silent, as if he hadn't heard her. She sighed indulgently and turned away again. Yes, definitely in one of his moods again.

* * *

Jaune wasn't quite sure how to feel. On one hand, his new partner had gone out of her way to help him out. Always a good thing as far as his continued physical integrity was concerned. She had also been one of the choices he had mulled over. On the other hand, she also hadn't been his first choice, and the way she had taken out the other Ursa had confirmed his concerns about her.

He glanced at Yang, who was cheerfully leading the way through the woods. His eyes flicked over to the shot-gauntlets on her forearms. A definite close-range fighter, and one who enjoyed it immensely. Also someone who not only jumped into the fray but actually sought it out. That fact that she was taking point now reinforced that since she had done so without his prompting.

As a close-range fighter by circumstance not choice—again he felt a spike of resentment at his family fobbing off his great-granddad's relic on him—and as one who pointedly did _not_ enjoy the fact, the next four years did not bode well for his continued safety. His only hope now was linking up with another pair with ranged weapons to balance things out, preferably Ruby and Pyrrha since he knew them and they were as well-disposed toward him as Yang was.

The problem was that while he knew that the school usually clustered students into four-person teams, he had little idea how the pairs were placed together. So even if he and Yang did link up with another ideal pair, he had no idea if that would stick when it came to team creation. While the partnerships may have been formed on a rule little more thought out than an inadequately stocked box of donuts in the middle of a ravenous police station, he had the sinking feeling that the school had another twist in store.

Then there was that little issue of him being caught unprepared earlier. He gritted his teeth at how being surprised by two Ursae—and "surprised" was a word that had no business describing any situation involving Grimm—had forced him to draw on his training instinctively. The inept tumble he'd so carefully planned went down the drain since he hadn't had time to even think about setting up a more defensive, desperate-seeming fight. Even if Yang hadn't seen it, he knew the cameras still did. And since she had seen it, he knew that would make her hesitate less about dragging him into the next fight.

"Think this is it?"

The question pulled him out of his gloom. He saw that they were approaching a circle of decrepit stonework and columns. A number of the columns were either shattered or missing, and the whole thing looked like it should have been overgrown by plant life a long time ago. And maybe it had, with the school having cleared some of it just to use it for the test. Within the stonework were a ring of stone platforms displaying what looked like black and gold chess pieces. The stone on the platforms looked less worn than the temple, reinforcing the idea that it had been "revived" just for the test.

"Looks like," he said, glad that they'd arrived at the given goal without further difficultly.

At the same time, however, the relative ease also made him suspicious. His family's training had often involved something similar to horror movie logic since the moments when things looked the safest and he'd let his guard down were the very ones whoever was training him at the moment would spring their latest surprise on him. Thinking about it, that was probably why he'd grown up so paranoid.

He saw no reason that would be different now. Heck, for all he knew coming up with the surprises was how the instructors got their jollies. His family had certainly been the most gleeful whenever they sprung their traps.

As such, he allowed Yang to approach the platform first, just in case there was a trigger or two stuffed in there somewhere. Of course, while he kept a safe distance, he also readied himself to quickly grab her and drag her off. Letting her trigger a possible trap was one thing, but leaving her to face it immediately afterward was a sure way to get scythed and sniper rifled by a certain little red-hooded girl. Or face the prospect of Yang escaping whatever she triggered herself and remembering who had left her to face it alone.

"Some of them are missing," she noted as she stepped into the circle. "Looks like we weren't the first ones here."

Jaune saw that there were indeed a few empty pedestals. He relaxed a little. There seemed to be no sign that anything in the temple had been disrupted by the setting off of any nasty surprises. Still, that didn't mean there weren't. After all, they could've been explicitly designed not to disrupt anything. A trap made for more than one victim was useless if it stopped being hidden after the first one set it off.

"Well, I guess we're supposed to pick one," he said, making no move toward any of the platforms and tensing in preparation.

As he expected, Yang's "get on with it" nature reacted to the indirect prompt by making her move toward one of the platforms. He hovered behind her as close as he was willing to, just within grabbing distance.

"Hm …" Yang considered the golden knight piece before her. "How about a cute little pony?"

He would've smirked at the typically "girly" choice, but he was just too tense as he watched Yang's fingers close around the relic. He was practically on his toes as she lifted it off the platform.

Nothing happened.

Slowly, he let out the breath he was holding as Yang turned to him, holding up the piece with a smile. He smiled back, hoping that he was keeping the edge of nervousness off his face. The next thing the blonde said caused the smile to freeze on his face.

"That wasn't too hard!"

Jaune's wanted to berate the girl for jinxing them, but he held his tongue. Instead, he responded with a noncommittal, "Well, it's not like this place is very difficult to find."

Right after he said it, his annoyance shifted to himself, realizing that the same line tempted cruel, sadistic Fate about as much as Yang's had. Oblivious to his internal turmoil, his partner just grinned at him.

There was a sound in the woods behind them, and Jaune turned immediately, grip tightening on shield and sword. _Crap, here it is,_ he thought, certain that his and Yang's ill-advised self-assurances were now being undone. Such was the universe's sense of humor, and Jaune had long ago realized that the punch line was aimed right at his face.

A pair of golden eyes peered curiously at him.

"Blake?" he voiced out, surprised. He forced the white-knuckled grip on his weapons to normalize.

She looked at him for a while, as if trying to recall something. Another figure emerged from the forest behind her. It was a boy in a black-and-gold-trimmed green tailcoat with pink sleeve cuffs, which formed a curious match with his spiky black hair and the almost out-of-place pinkish magenta streak on it. Seeing that he was looking at him, the boy gave him a curt, jerky nod, which he returned with about the same level of awkwardness.

"Oh, hi," Blake finally said. "Jaune, is it?"

"Uh, yeah." He nodded. Then he remembered that Yang was behind him and added, "This is Yang, by the way. You kinda met her last night, but, you know …"

He trailed off, and he saw Blake nod agreeably at Yang, apparently recognizing her from when she'd intervened in the argument in ballroom the previous night. Yang, for her part, gave her usual friendly smile and waved with the piece in her hand.

"Hey there, help yourselves to a relic." The tall girl pointed her free thumb at the ring of pedestals.

Blake nodded and, almost as an afterthought, introduced her partner, "This is Ren."

"Hey," the boy said simply as Blake moved to pick up her own relic. The boy said nothing else and seemed content to settle back into silence. Jaune looked from him to Blake. Birds of a feather and all that, he supposed.

Prompted by Yang waving that very piece when she greeted her, or maybe she was just hit by the same whim that had caused the blonde to pick the piece in the first place, Blake also picked up a knight.

"Nice choice." Yang nodded approvingly.

Jaune grinned, remembering how Yang had reacted to his earlier pun, and just couldn't stop himself from playing on Yang calling the piece a pony. Besides, he still found that it was entertaining to mess with her a bit. And since he had played on the word _brotherhood_ earlier …

"So does that make us all bronies?"

The glare both girls turned on him was magnificent.

"Wanna trade partners?" Yang asked Blake.

"No."

Jaune's smile widened. Ren, staying silent, just flicked his eyes between him and the girls.

* * *

A massive shadow passed over the two Ursae corpses. There was a low growling sound as a disproportionately large muzzle touched one of the cooling bodies, then the other. It sniffed at the two bodies closely. The growling intensified as the muzzle began to sniff at the air.

Then there was a resounding, bellowing roar.

The shadow moved, forest floor shaking with every thundering step.

* * *

"Oh my," Ozpin commented as he observed the scene on his Scroll. He took a sip from his cup of coffee.

"It's been a while, Rachel."

Beside him, he could feel Glynda raising an eyebrow at his naming of one particular Grimm. Smiling, he took another sip.

* * *

Nora Valkyrie hummed as she hopped along, brushing the tips of a bush's budding flowers with her fingers as she passed by. She caught sight of dirt particles caught in the rays of sunlight breaking through the forest canopy, twirling slowly and gracefully as they got caught in a small air current, almost dancing. She took on a wide, open-jawed smile as she joined them. The hem of her pink skirt scything outward when she spun as she moved forward, and she danced to a beat she imagined was playing through the forest.

The girl she met all white and blue did as she was wont to do and talked and talked as she followed her too. She didn't dance, though, which was too bad; her dress would have been perfect for dancing.

"… do you even have any idea where you're going?" that girl shouted. She seemed to like doing that a lot. "You've just been bouncing around the last few minutes like a child with too much …"

Nora let her talk. It was nice to have company. She wasn't Ren, but she seemed nice enough. Weiss, that was her name, had even warned her about the fire earlier. Sure, Weiss had caused it herself—she should learn to be more careful—but sometimes that just happened. What could you do?

"… I bet you haven't known at all since you dragged me off!" Weiss continued.

She should introduce her to Ren. He could stand to talk a bit more.

Well, not too much more. The would kind of ruin his gra … gra … some fancy word that meant really cool. Not that he wouldn't still be cool. He was always cool. But there was Ren-cool and plain cool, and less than Ren-cool was just wrong.

She saw an old log leaning against a rock. It seemed pretty solid, so she jumped on it and skipped her way across its length. Weiss followed, not on the log but beside it.

"That's why you're not answering back, isn't it?" The girl pointed up at her. She liked doing that a lot too. "You just can't admit that you have no idea where we're going."

"Of course I do!" Nora declared. She slid down and landed right in front of Weiss. Face to face. Their noses almost touched.

The girl staggered back. "Gah! Stop doing that!"

Her red face—it had been like that for a while; Nora hoped she wasn't sick—got even redder.

"We're going to see Ren!" Nora continued, stating the obvious. Nora liked the girl, but she could be kinda slow sometimes.

The other girl tugged at the ponytail on the side of her head, which got Nora thinking about ponies. She liked ponies; they seemed fun. Not as fun as riding Grimm and playing grenade polo, though.

"And do you even have an idea where this Ren of yours is?" Weiss finally said, sounding like she was forcing herself not to shout.

Nora placed her hand on the girl's shoulder and began to laugh. The girl pushed it away, but she barely noticed.

"He's not _my_ Ren, silly!" Why did people always think that? "Well, he is my best friend. So he is kinda my Ren. Just not my-my Ren …"

Not because she didn't find him handsome, though. He was handsome. Absently, she traced the opening just below her blouse's collar with a finger. But wouldn't it be a little weird—

_"Just—"_ Weiss began. Stopped. More calmly, "Just answer the question."

Nora shook her head slightly and looked at the girl patiently. For someone whose name kinda sounded like _wise_, she really wasn't.

"He'd be at the temple. We're all supposed to be there." She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "You think they wanna make us pray? Hope it's not a moment of silence kind. Have trouble with those. Probably you too …"

Weiss grabber her shoulders "Nora! Focus! How. Do. We. Get. To. The. Temple?"

Nora blew a gust of breath up to her bangs. "North."

The other girl let go of her and screamed.

"It's like talking to a wall!" Her ponytail was frizzled from all the pulling now. "Wait, no, a wall would be less frustrating!"

The girl stomped off past her. She plowed through the grass and bushes, kicking up a storm of pebbles, twigs, and green.

"I'm taking the lead!" Weiss declared as she kept going. "You can follow me or not, I don't—"

"Okay," Nora said simply.

That seemed to stop the girl in her tracks. She turned back to her, eyes narrowed. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Nora saluted perkily and gave a full-toothed smile. "You lead, I follow, we go-go."

Besides, she'd already told her where the temple was now. Weiss may be a bit slow, but that should be easy enough. Taking the lead also might make her feel better about herself. The poor girl. Maybe that's why she shouted so much. Life must be so confusing for her.

Weiss's icy blue eyes blinked at her, then blinked again. She looked confused already.

"… Fine," she finally said.

She charged forward, and Nora jauntily followed her lead. A butterfly flew past them, and Nora turned to watch it as she walked. She spread her hands to the side, miming an airplane, as she watched it fly. Her flight crashed abruptly when she bumped into Weiss.

"Watch it!" She glared at her.

Nora looked at her curiously. "Why did you stop?"

"I'm just trying to get my bearings!" she huffed.

Weiss looked out one way, then another, then another again. Nora swayed in place as she waited, bouncily jigging to a tune she mentally hummed to herself. The girl was clearly confused again, and it wouldn't be polite to rush her.

Suddenly, Weiss pointed at something through a gap in the trees. "There!"

Following the line of her finger with her gaze, Nora spotted the mouth of a cave. There seemed to be drawings near the entrance. She smiled eagerly as she followed Weiss toward it. She liked drawings and was eager to see what they were about.

"I'm sure this is it," Weiss said as they stood outside the opening.

Nora said nothing. She watched the pictures scrawled outside the cave, giggling at all the stickmen. They reminded her of the drawings she and Ren used to make together as kids (now she just made them by herself while Ren watched). The stickmen were holding sticks of their own, which made it even funnier, and they looked like they were poking a giant bug with them. That looked fun too.

"Nora, are you coming or not?" an impatient voice came from within the cave.

"Coming!" she replied in a singsong voice, a spring in her step as she disappeared into the darkness of the cavern.

* * *

Ever since their worries about Jaune's safety had eased, Pyrrha and Ruby had settled into a companionable silence. They were still trying to make good time through the woods, but there was now no feeling of pressing urgency, so they could relax. In relative terms, of course. Forests were dangerous enough even without Grimm lurking in the shadows.

Her relief had also done wonders to ease her tension. She been quite glad that while he may have gotten off to a poor start on this test, Jaune had been more than capable enough in salvaging his landing into a controlled roll—the pattern on the grass had been quite telling—and cutting down one of the Ursae he'd apparently run into. Good looks, pleasant personality, and competent ability? His prospects seemed to rise the more Pyrrha knew about him, and part of her was immensely pleased about that. Maybe this time really would work out better than her previous attempts at relationships, if they could even be called that.

Also, they said you could tell a lot about a person by the quality of the company that they kept. The small emeralds which hung from the circlet on her head jangled on their chains as she turned her head to regard the young hooded girl walking beside her. In many ways Ruby reminded her of Jaune. Like him, they both seemed to have an awkward air around them, but they were quite amiable when one got past that. They also appeared to be easy to underestimate.

Jaune had that strange nervousness about him when he talked to people, which was likely due to his poor luck (his explanation for why he had hidden from the Schnee heiress had been … fascinating), and the uncertain, self-conscious manner in which he carried himself. Ruby appeared really young, and probably was given that she'd introduced Yang as her older sister earlier. Yet Pyrrha had just seen signs of his handiwork, and Ruby's apparent advance placement in Beacon spoke volumes. The girl also carried around an infamously challenging scythe with apparent ease.

Despite her own fame, Pyrrha felt that it was she who should feel so privileged to partner with such an apparent prodigy. Especially since Ruby seemed endearingly unaware about just how astounding being accepted two years early actually was, given Beacon's admission standards. In fact, she even seemed a little ashamed of it, fearing it would make people think of her as strange. As someone who'd met more than one overly confident and arrogant "fellow" celebrities over the years, Pyrrha had developed quite a high regard for humility as a character trait.

True, part of her was jealous that Jaune seemed to get along with Ruby quite well due to their commonalities, judging from what she'd observed in the assembly hall yesterday and from their brief conversation heading toward the initiation. But that feeling was easily swept away and duly ignored. After all, she'd just met him and, while interested, it wasn't like she'd had any real "claim" yet. Ruby herself had only gotten introduced to him yesterday. Plus, it wasn't really in her nature to hold on to such negative feelings, especially toward such a friendly person. Doing so just seemed as petty as bullying.

"Pyrrha?" Ruby suddenly, and Pyrrha actually gave a little start.

"Yes?" she answered with an amiable smile, while quietly hoping Ruby hadn't somehow seen some of what she'd been thinking on her face.

"Mind if I ask you a question?" The other girl appeared nervous, her eyes looking from side to side every so often.

"… Not at all," Pyrrha said slowly, wondering what this was about.

"Can you please tell me about your weapons?" came the excited question. "They seem really cool, and I wonder if you could tell me what they do." An embarrassed flush appeared on her face. "Um, that is, if you don't mind."

Pyrrha's smile widened. Somewhere in their conversation earlier it had been mentioned that Ruby was something of an enthusiast when it came to weapons. She realized that the girl had probably been sneaking glances at Milo and Akouo as much as she had at her. Ruby had probably wanted to ask permission to view them and ask about them for a while now, but had needed to work out the courage to do so.

"Of course." She was happy enough to oblige the girl. It would also help pass the walking time with friendly conversation.

She was turning to display Milo when a loud roar suddenly erupted from behind them, followed by an eerie rumbling that seemed to be getting stronger and louder by the moment. Both of them spun around, suddenly alert and weapons raised.

The sight that greeted them caused both their jaws to drop simultaneously. A cloud of debris seemed to be bearing down their direction, crushing tree after tree before it. Birds were taking to the air all around it, desperate to keep out of the way.

"Scatter!" they both said at the same time as they scrambled in opposite directions, out of the way of the wave of destruction.

Pyrrha just managed to get out of the way in time, dodging flying logs and other debris as whatever it was cut a swath through where they'd been standing. Just as suddenly, it was gone, leaving an almost eerie quiet as the felled trees quickly settled to the ground.

"Ruby!" Pyrrha called out as she pushed through the leafy branches of one of the recently fallen trees.

"I'm okay!" was the reply. A moment later, Pyrrha saw the girl enter the new clearing, dusting herself off.

"Tha-That was a biiiggg Ursa," Ruby breathed, a dumbstruck look on her face.

She could only nod in response. She hadn't gotten a clear view of the massive Grimm, but from what she had seen it seemed to rival a Deathstalker in sheer size. That was far larger than Ursae Major usually grew to, but such things hadn't been unheard of. She opened her mouth to say as much when a suddenly realization caused a cold pit to form in her stomach, and the words died in her mouth.

Pyrrha turned to the direction it had come from, then looked at where it was going. The cold pit sunk deeper.

"Y-you don't think …" Ruby began, apparently having come to the same conclusion.

She nodded. "They're going to need our help."

They were about to run after the abnormally massive Ursa when a shadow suddenly loomed overhead. Both looked up, just realizing that the Ursa's passage had both attracted the attention of other Grimm and had left them clearly exposed.

A Nevermore, seemingly as big as the Ursa itself, screeched as it dove at them.

* * *

**Author's note:** The teams are probably pretty obvious at this point. The only thing I'm willing to say for now is that the team names will be Oum-compliant. If you don't get my meaning, Monty recently released some guidelines for how teams in _RWBY_ are named. Basically, they boiled down to the names needing to either be a color or refer to something evocative of a color. (RWBY/Ruby is rather obvious, JNPR/Juniper doesn't refer to the tree but the shade of grey-blue, and CRDL/Cardinal can refer to red.)

Also, yes, that giant Ursa's name is a reference to one of the formative book series of my childhood. Easy to guess if you've read it.


End file.
